5-31-10 Practice, Practice, Practice

Its been a while since I picked up my brushes and I was in need of some practice time. This weekend has been a little bit of a challenge and this is just one way for me to forget about stuff and slip into a little me time. I have a job that I am doing for a customer, its a medicine cabinet for his bathroom and its at the pinstripe stage so I decided to practice and this blank helmet was the first victim.

I laid out a simple design for the basis

and readied up the paint and brush for the 1st color and then followed up with 2 additional colors

I then moved to the cabinet. We took a 32 Ford reproduction grille shell, mounted a bathroom medicine cabinet in the center of it and coated it with Hot Rod Black. Now for some stripe.

I was up early again Monday morning and felt like doing some more. Elvis is in need of some defining aliment, out came the white with a touch of imitation gold. I stopped at the the tank and front fender, I felt it was enough for now and this is what I came up with.

Elvis will get some more stripes pulled as I progress, it will be a little history of my progress as I learn and advance with my striping. I got to say that I really enjoy doing this and I don't understand why I didn't catch on to this a while ago. I do know that before I started the classes I would get easily frustrated and give up, now I find myself determined and instead of frustration its a calming affect and I enjoy doing it now but just can't seem to find the time to work at it.

5/23/2010 Weekend trip, about 1200 miles

Off to mom & Dad's with Krystal's car. The transmission started to shift hard and needed a rebuild. I called around and  the prices exceeded the value of the car. Krystal's Grandfather (King of the Hill) said to get the car to him and he would rebuild it for her. Melissa had Nikki sit for TJ and we loaded up the truck and trailer and left out Friday afternoon to Mississippi.

Pulled into Mt Vernon, IL for the night, besides the smell and the doors slam'n all night long, we had a great dinner. Ya now I'm get'n old, I locked the keys in the truck and had to break into it with a coat hanger.

I was up around 5am and we were on the road by 7am and made to Mom & Dads for Lunch but had to stop at Boomland for Gas & pickles

Of coarse what would a trip to the Hill be with out having to work on the vehicles while there? My rear got a little leaky and it wasn't from the wonderful dinner the night before (bad joke)

I thought it was just a gasket but the cover was rotted and none of the parts stores had one in stock. I did a BB to it (BB=Bobby Butcher) it worked and held up all the way home.

When I washed the truck some of the stripping I did washed off so I got out the brushes and some color and fixed it and had a little extra and couldn't just toss it away so Herbs tractor got striped

Woke up Sunday to a beautiful sunrise and dew covered landscape

Loaded up and headed home, really wish we could have stayed a little longer.

I just don't understand IL gas pricing, it is hovering around $3 to $3.50 a gallon. This was a relief but didn't last long.

5/10/2010 Rolling Mdws & Mt Prospect Car Shows

I am sitting here at my desk on Monday morning about 6:10am and thinking we had a good weekend. Friday night we took the 37 Ford & 67 Chevy up to our local cruise night in town, our employee Joe and his Dad showed up with there cars. Joe has a 1970 Nova and his dad built a front engine dragster replica of the car he campaigned in the late fifties early sixties. Well besides us there were probably six others that braved the cold and showed up. It didn't last that long about a hole hour and half before it started raining.

Saturday I was up early and went to work for a couple of hours. After work I met up with Tim and his wife Karen and went to Mount Prospect High Schools auto shop car show with the 37 Ford, Melissa had an eye appointment and couldn't make. Again it was a bit chilly and a threat of rain was in the air. Crusty took a trophy, 1st for it since I finished it, kinda of surprised me. It was cool, the show benefited the auto shop class at the school and the students got a kick out of Crusty (our 37 ford). Saturday night Melissa and I went our for dinner for Mothers day, all in all another good day except Melissa being shocked and upset about the cost of her new glasses.

Sunday we stayed around the house and did some yard work, Melissa moved a bunch of hos ta and I got the garden rototilled and ready to plant, had dinner and just relaxed.

Paint'n the Camaro

May 1, 2010

I've been putting this off for a while, its not that I don't want to do it but that it takes time and with only one booth to paint in I couldn't afford to tie it up for two days. Melissa and Nikki went to Mom & dads in Mississippi for Alysa's baby shower leaving me and TJ home so we are here at the shop taking care of Tim's Camaro. This is a project that Tim and I have been working on for about a year and its time for some color.

Several times blocking got it to this point. Blocking is were you take fine grit sand paper and wrap it around a block and sand out any in perfections or bodywork waves.

Then I moved the Camaro into the booth and spent 3 hours masking up the car to keep any over spray off the frame and engine compartment, it also keeps the dust and dirt off the cleaned and prep surface.

I applied a sealer coat that was tinted yellow and even with that it took 6 coats of base color to cover the car. I let that set up for about 20 minutes and then layed out the rally stripes.

Based them in GM black, unmasked and cleaned the car one more time and then applied the clear coat.

Done, deep and shiny! this was after 4 wet coats of Urethane Clear.

Joe buffing it out, took him about 10 hours to block sand and polish the Camaro.

Done

Loaded and ready for delivery to Tims house for final assembly

Took me over 9 hours from start to finish just on the paint alone, I didn't want to push drying times to make sure everything flows smooth and it did. I love doing completes but they consume way to much time and even more in materials. Add up all the man hours and materials, you be lucky to break even

 on job like this but the end result is well worth it.