Body , Panel Fit, Flat, Gap, Prep and paint ..

[CHANGES 1,224]

21 hours ago, Lotusfab said:

Dave, what fillers are you using please. The green one looks like Dolphin glaze?

A lot depends on application .. There are many types which all serve the same purpose but with small differences .. Some are more aerated and easier to flat , others that are more dense are harder to rub down.     The lighter easy flat fillers are very common and useful for areas needing higher build .. They also have better elasticity , so less likely to crack if flexed . You are better leaving longer cure time on these to avoid shrink back .  You do need to be aware that if you Wet Flat these fillers , you really need to dry them out with heat source before next application,  be it filler of paint.  Failure to do this can lead to minute droplet of water getting trapped which can lead to micro blister appearing later .  All fillers should be sealed as before paint . This is where stopper etc, or glaze coats come in ..  However if you are doing significant repairs it is not always practical to completely cover with glaze as i have , due to cost.  What we tend to do is use a polly coat , such as UPOL Re- Face..   You are correct on the Dolphin glaze, i find this a great product ..  I don't use it as a sealer on these type of jobs , more as a fine finish filler ..  It has great ability of getting into tiny little voids and scratches and also has self leveling properties.    Different restorers will use different applications and methods .. Like most things new product are always coming out, so staying on top of it all can be difficult .. in tend to stick to products I  know .. 

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Part 7     

Matching doors and front wings .

This was an interesting match up . The contours drifted off and panel alignment was challenging..   The swage height had already been established as the default position so the rest would be where it landed ..   From the next pic you can see the top of the wing will need extra building if we were going to get any flow across the gap.   

This was not where the sculpting would end . As we progressed down the face, the top section of the wing was well out of alignment.

For those thinking why not move the top of the door in. This was the best mean position for the door as a whole. The bottom of the door and the swage point were actually quite close .(see pic's below) . The only action would be to re-form the surface of the wing to match the door

Before building with fillers we needed to re-enforce the mirror mounts.. There was some gel crack caused by the mirror flexing..  This was ground out and GRP applied .  The customer has also been advised to fit a load displacement plate on the inside when he eventually fits the mirror , just for that extra bit of strength.  

We also have the situation where the aerial mounting hole surface will get raised quite a bit .. This needs consideration as the aerial location shaft will end up to short .. As a result we had to use GRP to build that point, then we could grind away the inside to give the correct panel thickness without compromising any panel surface strength.

Finally we can fill and blend across the two panels as we did at the rear .  At the same time a bit of extra care is taken to minimise the gap under the capping rail trim plate . The Capping rail also needs fitting to conform where it sits into the top of the wing, only then can this section can be considered  complete.

Next up wings bonnet, headlamps and front panel .

TBC.  

[CHANGES 1,224]

Part 8     

Matching front wings to bonnet and front panel and head lamp pods .

As you can see from the sub title this is a big section .  As all these areas blend into one plane , we need to do all in one process ..  So where to start. ?

First impression can be deceptive, This first pic. is how it looked after stripping of paint  and shimming to best basic fit..

But when we get down at a different angle with straight edge ,we start to unravel the nightmare fit.  This is so common of the ‘G’ esprit bonnets . When they fit nice in the corners they stay proud in the middle. Most end up somewhere in the middle , but that is not an option here..  This is where I would prefer if it was steel or alloy panel that I could flex.    But hey hoe, just means more flatting rubbing building etc etc ..

  The position in the above pic will not present a reasonable platform to work from.  It would involve to much material being put into the bonnet to level out..  It would be more practical to do the main build re-sculpturing on the wings and front panel .. This also makes sense when you consider the head lamps will need to be shaped to fit at the same time ..  So first job is to fit new thicker seal to compensate for changed height then pull down into best fit option for projected shape.

With the front corners now just slightly tall , instead of sunken , we can establish a full side to side plane for the bonnet front edge to match , but we must first address the head lamp pods

After doing a primary fill we can start using the straight edge to focus where the builds are needed .

We use the straight edge in its flexible plane, as we did with the roof section.. This will give us a guide to create a smooth curved transition from one panel to the next .. As you can see from this pic above the lamp pods still need building toward the back to bring in line with the  bonnet.

The same will be needed with the center of the front panel..   It is worth noting here that in the standard form , even when new, there was not a perfect transition between these two panels .  This is even more pronounced on the later Stevens models.

With the back edges of the bonnet in line with the top of the wings as in above pic, along with the front corners being set in position , what we are left with in the middle has to be dealt with.

Next up how we correct this . Then how we smooth out any and all undulations across the whole bonnet and front panel area blending into the wing tops .

TBC

[Paul Coleman 517]

I quite like the challenge of not falling down the bonnet gap when I wash my S1 and the fact that I can almost get into the car without opening the door using the panel gap at the back of the door

[Fridge 977]

3 minutes ago, Paul Coleman said:

I quite like the challenge of not falling down the bonnet gap when I wash my S1 and the fact that I can almost get into the car without opening the door using the panel gap at the back of the door

The panel gaps, certainly on the early cars, are crazily wild.

[CHANGES 1,224]

11 hours ago, Fridge said:

The panel gaps, certainly on the early cars, are crazily wild.

I heard it said years ago , along with the gaps on a Land Rover and the great wall of china they were one of the few things you can see from space.. 

[CHANGES 1,224]

 Part 9     

Matching front wings to bonnet and front panel and head lamp pods , continued.

After establishing where the shape form needing building it was just a case of process.  Because of the amount needed in some areas , we used GRP for the primary stage , then used a quality filler to level out detail .

From the above pic you can see how much work we saved by concentrating on reshaping the wing tops instead of the bonnet ..  I do realise it was the bonnet curvature that was distorted , but fortunately it was in a consistent.   This did not mean the bonnet did not need attention.. In fact quite the opposite .. By using the straight edge  I was able to find lots of hollows and dips that needed rectifying .   

The whole area, bonnet ,wing tops, head lamps and front panel , all had to be plane sanded as one . After localised leveling , the whole front area was coated with glaze . 

A finer flatting process is then used to generate the  uniform even finish ready for the next stage.. In the next pic you can see this has been achieved with only a thin skin of fillers , This will have kept the weight of the bonnet panel down , also allowing it to have its natural flex without risk of the repairs cracking .

 

Although this was a short post, the hours involved in getting just this area correct were massive.  Because the bonnet and front panel are not naturally in the same plane , poetic licence had to be implemented .  The reason for this was purely aesthetics, With the tighter gaps and more uniform shape , having them in a different plane would become more pronounced and not how the customers expected.   So probably difficult to appreciate just how much work was involved for such a minor, but very important feature.

The only job left on the main shell now was cutting the panel gaps, then sanding them to the specified 7mm ready for next stage of seal and polyester coating.

 

TBC.

      

 

[Lotusfab 3,213]

The front left corner of the bonnet on my S1 was raised, it was also a very poor fit. I made a jig to reshape the curve. I then removed the metal strip that is riveted to the bonnet and fixed it again when the bonnet had the best curve. It really improved the fit. Its not perfect, but judging by the SWLM movie clips its a much better fit than when it left the factory. Changing the bonnet curve might help in some cases , but I note you considered it. I take my hat off to you Dave, that car must look superb now!

[Lotusfab 3,213]

Heres how bad my S1 was, I had to rework the left pod and recurve the bonnet after it was painted without damaging it!

Heres the left front pod and bonnet fit initially! 

 

After a lot of work, not perfect but much much better. 

Freeze the movie when they show the front left of the car and you can see how far the front left bonnet corner sticks up, quite surprising!

[CHANGES 1,224]

2 hours ago, Lotusfab said:

Heres how bad my S1 was, I had to rework the left pod and recurve the bonnet after it was painted without damaging it!

Yes some are quite bad..  The problem as I see it is,  restorers forget the reason for bad fit when they strip ..  They misguidedly assume when its all painted and fitted up it will be better aligned .. As we know this is not always the case ..   When so much trouble has been taken to get a nice paint finish , the last thing you need to be doing is constantly fiddling around trying to make things fit better..  With the GRP cars , flexing a panel is a drastic action , not easy and can leave the panel under stress . With vibration this could create issues ..  However over time the GRP will capitulate, relaxing into that form , especially in warm climates ..   You can see evidence of this when GRP panels are not stored correctly and end up warping .. 

So in conclusion what we are showing in this thread in not just generating flat gaped fitting panels . But a process of strip, refit , re-align, asses, rectify .  'Then strip, re-fit and confirm '..  This last stage is done a couple of time during the next processes of polly , prime and paint.  In main to make sure the panels don't grow to far .. With the gaps getting tighter, the clearances when panels open gets bloody tight.. We don't want them touching and chipping an edge off..    It will also give you the confidence on final assembly that things will just fit as they should .. 

 

[CHANGES 1,224]

This pic here may give you a better perspective on getting all the corners in the correct plane ..  Although its only when you do an eye level view that you appreciate the full accuracy ..    A good indication here is the strip light reflection as it goes from the h/lamp pod to the bonnet .. This shows they are in the same plane ..

 

[Lotusfab 3,213]

Looks perfect Dave!

[Buddsy 1,643]

Dave is this your car or is this a service you are offering?

 

buddsy

[CHANGES 1,224]

2 hours ago, Buddsy said:

Dave is this your car or is this a service you are offering?

 

buddsy

Hi Buddsy

This is actually a Customers Esprit .   

[CHANGES 1,224]

 

Part 10

   Prepping and polly coat..    

First job is a major clean up. This included all aspects of the Esprit /panels..  I cannot stress how important this bit it  .. When fully blown off , wipe down with spirit wipe. Then tack rag.  Your substrate condition will determine your next step .. If you have some areas of old paint that are stable enough but still visible, you may wish to apply a Bar Coat / etching isolator..

However if you are happy with what you have you can go straight to polly coat But only if your polly coat does not include an added solvent ..  If it does use Isolator first.. 

If using two component Polyester coat as I do , you will need an extra-large gun set up .. This is because it sprays so thick.. I use a specific type of spray gun just for the polly coat..    Apply two heavy crossing coats to all the panels and shell ..  You will be surprised how much of this product you will use , as it is not thinned ..  On this project by the time the polly stage was finished we use 10 ltrs  ..  

It is also important to mask out all the areas you don’t need or want to paint with polly coat .. This stuff goes on very orange peel, you don’t need to be rubbing down any more than you really want.. 

The polly coat also acts as an isolator. So as long as you don’t break though during the next stage you will guard against solvent soak down.   But to be honest I always go through in spots on the first coats..   This is only because I am searching for extra flatness using a guide coat ..

On the above pic you can see the bonnet going through primary flat with guide coat .. In the front O/S corner you can clearly see a low spot .  Even after every bit of care taken to this point we still find faults .. This was  addressed and bonnet re-coated .

When the polly coat is first applied, due to its thickness , it searches small vent holes in all the filling we did .. Only a few but they pop as pin pricks .. These can be filled with Glaze before shadow coat and flat ..

Next pic shows the shell under primary flatting.  This is all done dry, by hand with various specialist blocks and grades of paper .. 

Don’t be under any illusion , done properly this stage takes days to do all the sections ..

Once primary sanding is done , I re-coat all areas that are thin or flatted through. Then repeat until every section is as required ..

TBC

 

 

[robington 142]

Amazing workmanship Dave. Its going to look stunning when its finished. 

[RichardJGC 381]

2 hours ago, robington said:

Amazing workmanship Dave. Its going to look stunning when its finished. 

....and parked up alongside yours....in time 🤞🙂.

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Part 11

   Prepping and primer coat..    

 Back to it, With the second coat of polly we are starting to build up a workable thickness in the material ..  With this flatting process, I take extra care with the edges and tall spots ; these are areas that are so easy to rub though . You can see in next pic ,on the rear quarter these high spots were over flatted ..

 This only becomes a problem in the second polly coat .  To avoided this , I use the guide coat as a gauge ..  By leaving the black on all these protruding areas until everything else is flatted we can prevent over flatting .. When everything else is flatted just a light local sand to knock of the guide coat is all that is needed .  

So on to primer . But what primer colour to use .. Monaco white does not have a designated undercoat colour .  This means the primer colour can affect the shading .. I could mix a white undercoat , but this would add another process and will still need investigating for shading first ..  To get around this we do test spray and compare to what customer is expecting.

These are just three of the grey primer shades we tried .. From very light  to mid grey ..  I also tried 3 shades of white .. ..  These were all then sprayed with the Monaco white base coat .. The results were compared to each other under different lights . This is done to look at the metamerism  . The most promising were then lacquer coated and viewed again..  With most full paints this is not needed as slight miss match to original shade is very difficult to identify ..  However what we were looking for here was a reflective depth in a white  .. So we need to asses the metameric make up of each layer in different lights     As it turned out the grey made the Monaco very flat , straight white primer became a bit washed out and all the grey shades in-between were just grades of the same ..  To get around this and give us the vibrancy needed we added  just a touch of yellow pigment to a white primer.. Not much but just enough to give the Monaco colour a foundation  .. In test spray it brought the Monaco white out with an improved depth ..  

This was applied to all the panels and rolling shell . followed by shadow coat and flat. “Again”.. Re-application to some areas was needed .. 

Once completed .  Re-mask and prep for Monaco Base coat followed by clear coat ..    

Because white is the lightest colour and is achromatic ,it will fully reflect and scatter the wavelengths of light . So to give it depth is why we need to add pigments of red blue and green .  The trick is not to loose the chosen white, " Monoaco" ...  So by adding a touch of yellow pigment, made up from red and green to the primer or undercoat , we provide a reflective foundation .. The base colour is fairly translucent so the pigments in the foundation colour will provide a reflective depth while the base coat provide the tint ," Monaco White"

 

After several  light building coats of base,  3 coats of clear coat is applied ..   It is also important to check your clear coat is pure .. Some can have a tinge to them, this will effect your final tint .. if you use a non-pure lacquer, always make a note of it .. This is because if you need to repair at a later date you will need to use same type otherwise the metamerism phenomenon can appear  ..  

TBC   

[drdoom 420]

If I may take this tutorial back to the very earliest matter of paint removal, a headlamp pod strip sanded this afternoon in question. The gelcoat appears to be of scant thickness and is quickly gone through at edges when sanding by hand, 180 grit. Is it necessary/wise to altogether take off the grey primer layer just above the gelcoat? Enjoying some summer-like weather for as long as it lasts I've gone at sanding of this sort in hope of better understanding how the greater part of the shell must be prepared. Also there seems to be a thin void in the gelcoat running more than halfway across the pod top surface near the front edge, visible after flatting as a meandering grey line of primer. Would it be wise to treat this as a crack, grinding back and re-glassing?  

Cheers

[CHANGES 1,224]

To Continue  .... First of all apologies to @drdoom for not replying to your post .... The answer being yes grind back and re- glass... but i expect you have moved well on with your project since then.. 

Part 12

   Base and clear coat ,building depth.

 

Moving on .. Once we have the first layers of colour and clear coat, we allow it to gas out for several days then fully wet flat with 1500 . this will remove any of the orange peel effect you tend to get with the initial build of base then clear …  After a re-masking and full spirit wipe its time to apply a fine drop coat of colour .. This is done in a way that provides a sort of mist coat that allows light to pass through.  After a flash off , then 1 mist then 3 full coats of clear are applied .    This provides a deep gloss finish but still with a small amount of broad orange peel or wobble effect 

After a couple of days gas out we again start to wet flat, this time starting with 2000 to block out the wobble / orange peel ..  followed by 3000 paper to remove any flat lines from previous flatting…  This will start to generate a finish ready for polishing process..

A quick wiz over with mop and G3 starts to give the initial shine .. 

  After inspection with lights. small areas can be re-flatted with 5000 to just refine any little points , before mop polishing with G10..   You can possible make out the 3 stages in the next 3 pics on tailgate..  ( not always easy to see in Pics)

 Next stage is assembly and  check while allowing a full 60 day gas out before final polish.. 

TBC

[Dan E 1,582]

@CHANGES gas out? What does that mean? Looks stunning I clay bared the wifes BMW today then machine polished it still looks nothing like that 👍

[drdoom 420]

9 hours ago, Dan E said:

@CHANGES gas out? What does that mean? Looks stunning I clay bared the wifes BMW today then machine polished it still looks nothing like that 👍

In other words, "off gas".

[CHANGES 1,224]

13 hours ago, Dan E said:

@CHANGES gas out? What does that mean? Looks stunning I clay bared the wifes BMW today then machine polished it still looks nothing like that 👍

Contrary to a lot of thought 'gas out' does not mean i have run out of things to talk about !! 

Its a term used for drying time ..  Originally referring to the solvent venting out of the product (paint) . In later years it also included to reaction time for full cure of the chemical reaction on the 2k products .. People think they are dry next day .. Not so , just in a transition stage.. This is why they low bake to speed up the gas out time to hours instead of weeks .. Because classic painters like to work the finish and colour flat , having it in a green state for a while can make it easier to colour flat and polish ..  Plus low bake is not recommended on GRP Bodies

This does not mean the car can not be used, just that the paint will be a bit flexible for a while and may scratch easier .. The best polish finish is always achieved when fully hard several weeks or months later depending on products / Processes used...    Most people don't know or care about this, just getting it back on the road is enough .. 

That me all gassed out on that subject ..    

[Fridge 977]

Interesting. The body shell of mine wasn't polished until 2 years later. Just before I got to the stage when I was applying the decals.

I had to remove some of things temporarily, such as tail lights etc. Came up great.

[Fridge 977]

Looking at these on the "big computer" screen, the level of finish is absolutely first class.