Monday morning frustrations... "How not to"

Guys,

Just thought I would share the frustrations of the last week culminating in the this morning's latest failure.

For the last 10 days i have been trying to build a set of air intake scoops a la David ( see his excellent guide). I ordered the scoops no issue, I ordered a second set of grills from a broken car no probs, I bought filler, Primer, top coat and lacquer - all going well.

5 steps to enlightenment:-

1. Fibre glass Scoops fit so bad and had to use appx 6 iterations with fill and rub down to get something remotely presentable. Ended up with free form sanding and shaping to make up for the inadequacies.

2. Sprayed, rubbed down, filled, sprayed, rubbed down, filled, etc so may times I lost count. each time with an error in the finish. I ended up going through 2x 300ml cans of primer and 2 x cans of top coat plus a can of lacquer. I had runs, crazing, matt finish, plus some paint problems I couldn't even diagnose. in the mean time I was still trying to do a day job and travelled on a trip to Istanbul for 2 days ( managing a top coat and rub down before I went to return to a matt ( I want high gloss) finish on my beautifully sanded down scoops)

3. Saturday, I cracked and changed the approach with a different brand of acrylic paint, and got a great finish, final rub down and last coat yesterday pm. I went to bed with the dream of a bit of T cut today and fitting the scoops tonight.

4. With what I thought was dry components I moved them from the garage to the top shelf of the airing cupboard for a nice bake of the last coat 12 hours of warm dry air was just what they needed before finishing. Woke this morning only to find my wife had used the top shelf to stack some clean towels on top of the scoops ( which appears weren't so dry) and have now have a baked in nice texture relief on top..... ( much swearing!)

5. Ok my fault of cause since car parts shouldn't be in the airing cupboard on a shelf my wife can't even reach without jumping up...... ( I don't know why this is a problem myself, since without the addition of towels it makes a really good oven for baking paint in, the Wife disagrees on this point). I have now just rubbed down again then just re-spayed with the last of my new top coat! and done something really badly wrong as its crazed !!!!!!! ahhhhhh....

So the task for tonight is wait for the paint to harden and start again. I know my time is considered free, but with the paint and filler costs, I could have send the parts away for powder coating and I still think it would have been cheaper!

I have learned a new mantra to my life in the last week "Spray, curse, rub down, Spray, curse rub down - repeat daily whilst reciting the words "I Love my MGF"!


Frustrations of life on a Monday

N

Bugger :rant: :rant: Sounds like the last top coat was "too high in solvent" or too much paint on the top of the previous coats and it has softened the previous coats and shrunk as it dried :rant: :rant: I hate to say this but i think you will have to strip back all of the previous coats and start again :rant: also did you use a special "etch primer" on the glass fibre moulds and filler before painting. good luck

If it is any consolation, i resprayed a Morris 1000 many years ago and didnt seal the original paint and within 3 months it was like crocodile skin! i was advised by a paint sprayer that the solvent in the new paint had sofetened the original and had shrunk as it hardened :rant: i had to strip everything back to bare metal and start again.

Bryan

Thanks, for the comments. I have resigned myself to a strip back to the base surface if needed. However, I did think if I can just wet and dry back to a decent surface and then re spray with Etch Primer and start again.

N

Funnily enough, that sounds not dissimilar to my efforts with the scoops. :bust:

I DESPISE BODYWORK!