Body Shop May 2020

The car was media blasted and then sprayed with a black primer that also serves as a guide coat.

   

   

As you can see in the lower pictures, body filler has been applied and then sanded smooth just until the guide coat starts showing..  Once the guide coat starts showing, if the filler has still has low points, more has to be added and the sanding starts over.  Sanding more will just leave a high point where the guide coat showed up.  This continues panel after panel until the whole car has a smooth thin layer of filler on it with all of the contours and lines correct.

When I was originally restoring my 330, I was working on the hood and front area.  In order to get it perfectly smooth, I spread filler across the break at the front of the hood and front panel.  When you are working with filler, you put it on and then wait a few minutes for the top surface to harden.  Then you use a Surform file to take the sticky surface off.  If you don't do that, it clogs the sandpaper quickly.  Anyway, I got busy talking to someone and the whole area hardened.  I ended up having to take a hack saw blade to cut a slot between the two panels in order to get the hood open.  Then I had to sand each edge to make the gap uniform again.  After that, I sanded both surfaces at the same time, so they were exactly even.

A Dennison employee stopped by the painters and took some more pictures.  As you can see, lots more of the car is covered with filler.  But if you look at the top, it's not all sanded smooth yet.

   

       

    

I'm still under a Stay at Home order except for essential travel, so I haven't been able to visit and see the progress myself.