1963 FHC – Groundhog Day is Over

Yesterday I applied 4 coats of high build urethane primer to the body shell and fenders. So I’m effectively back to where I was 2 weeks ago. I paid extra special attention to the Glasurit Tech Sheets this time!

Although I always try and do the best job possible I will admit that sanding off the improperly mixed urethane primer and getting back to the polyester body filler gave me a chance to tweak some areas. Mainly, as discussed in this article, I did a better job of dealing with the pinholes and minor scratch type blems in the polyester. It does appear that the advantage of the high build primer, i.e. it’s high viscosity, means it does not readily wick into small spaces like pinholes. After an intense examination of the car with cleaner, compressed air, and a good light, I did find a few more pinholes to fill. It’s getting to the point of madness. You know those little images you see in your vision? I think people call them “floaters”. Well, as I was inspecting a little round floater would make me think “there’s another damn pinhole”. Of course, it went away as soon as I blinked. Better those than real ones I guess!

I also took this opportunity to paint the door hinges and the insides of the doors with basecoat/clearcoat. Every time you remove and reinstall the doors it is hard to get them exactly in the same position. As I will be block sanding over the entire door/body interface, I wanted the doors to be in their “final” position. This is probaby a fools errand but the hinges are painted and the correct hardware was used to install them. I also have the correct gasket installed at the rear shutface and the latches installed. So hopefully the doors are exactly where they need to be!

So after a day off watching the F1 race and dinking around with some issues on my 2+2, Monday I will start block sanding the urethane primer. Once I get it shaped nicely, I will follow up with wet sanding with 600 grit. At that point, it will be technically ready for color but that step is down the road a ways, as there are other steps that need to take place first. The subject of a future post.