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This was all new to me, learning curve like the front of Point Perpendicular. I wanted to eliminate any introduced (by me) problems from the painting that I could, like water or oil in the paint, so I could concentrate on the 'putting it on' bit which had its own challenges.

Halfway through, when I told the paint man about the 'satin' finish I was getting, he decided to tell me about the 'special' thinner I should have been using in the top coat. (I used acrylic for inhalation reasons.)

I drained the water filters before each spray; despite the drained tank, drained first filter, and chilling coil, some moisture appeared in the second filter from time to time.

 

This provides the opportunity to bore you with the RAAF East Sale dental compressor incident. Soon after I arrived at East Sale, the Dent Tech, who was about to melt gold to cast an inlay, asked me to come and look at his gas/compressed air torch which was playing up. Instead of a steady flame he was getting 'pulses'.

 

I twigged the pulses were in harmony with the compressor strokes, so I opened the drain tap on the 2 gallon tank under the compressor. 1.9999 gallons of water came out. That was 1964, I don't think it had been drained since 1943, when the Base was originally set up. No problems after that.

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Well, Heavens above it passed the MOT with a very badly painted rear wing.   Had an interesting day today. I needed to spray the  rear wing from the TR4. I did this last week and it wen

Hi Folks, well that was quite prophetic !!!!!!  Lockdown on March 23rd certainly threw a spanner in the works, So after 8 months sleep the Blue Racer has risen and having risdid is now at ho

Hi Roger, I recently had the "opportunity" (not) to do some bodywork on and respray my rear wing. I bought a very cheap (customer return) small garden gazebo on ebay and put it up in my garage. I

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Hi Folks,

haven't posted for a week. You are probably thinking he's had his feet up in the sunshine sipping champagne or other such excessive substance.

Well I haven't - so there. It was London Pride bitter and my feet weren;t up. Well they were a little bit but no higher than my shoulders. ;)

 

Anyway I have been busy (between the elevated feet and bitter); the bonnet is fitted and looks reasonable. :)

Whilst playing with the bonnet I noticed that on the offside wing there was evidence of the holes that the old wing mirrors had left behind.

It would appear that the filler is shrinking. When I looked closer there were small blisters next to the depressions.

These could be pressed in unlike th epaint on solid metal. :o

 

So what do you do, faced with blisters - you pick at them. I used a small scalpel to gently lift one of the blisters.

This very small blister grew and grew and soon became a gangrenous weeping ulcer (not actually weeping and probably not gangrenous).

The filler under the blisters was like plaster of paris - very powdery. :wacko:

 

This sort of repair takes a delicate touch so as not to cause anymore damage. So out came the sanding disc and into action - I soon had a nice big hole.

I can do big holes, :rolleyes: it's the little tiddly ones I don;t like.

 

So I now have a bare metal hole in the paintwork apprx 5" x 3". I filled the hole with some decent filler and sanded it back - this increased the damage site to apprx 9" x 6".

After quite a bit of filling and sanding I ended up with a reasonable finish. A coat of grey primer was applied and the wing left in the sun to dry.

 

Popped in for a cup of coffee and after a couple of minutes I heard this expensive crash. The wind had caught the wing and bashed it to the ground.

Eventually I ended up rubbing ALL the paintwork down and applying grey primer to the whole wing. The actual effect is quite pleasing to the eye.

I might paint the whole car in battleship grey primer.

 

Tomorrow I may gear up and paint the wing, weather permitting.

 

Although I've taken a couple of steps back at least I'm happy that the iffy paintwork was spotted and sorted.

 

Roger

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Dipstick award coming up, if you know who sees this....!!!!

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Dipstick award coming up, if you know who sees this....!!!!

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Roger, before history repeats itself, I assume these are the small machine screw holes and not the larger hole often needed for springy mirrors ?. Either way I think filling holes with just bondo is never good because the stuff is often porous. Little holes can be easily filled with the MIG or brazing or lead with just a skim coat of bondo needed to finish the surface prep before painting. Stuart introduced me to Upol-D, waterproof alu reinforced poly filler that I really like.

 

Stan

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Hi Stan,

the holes were apprx 1/4" . The back face of the wing had a plate wleded on so not much filler required - it was just iffy powdery stuff. The filler I use appears to set quite well and is stable. I shall investigate Stuarts stuff for another day (which will probably be tomorrow at this rate).

 

Hi Dave,

this series of posts isn;t here to make you smile on a night shift. It is serious stuff! It is for the discerning engineer needing guidance and direction.

Now get back to your work before the governer sees you enjoying yourself.

 

 

Roger (note to self - must be more serious)

Edited by RogerH
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No its a filler not a putty.

Stuart.

 

It is very nice stuff to work with because it has a smooth creamy texture and goes on very easily but once it sets up is very durable. It is not significantly harder to sand than regular filler.

 

The only quirk is that the filler is dark gray and the hardener is red. You mix 100:1 filler/hardener ration which I can tell you is not an easy proportion to judge by eye. Luckily it is not that critical however unlike many fillers the color does not change when you mix it so there is no guide to tell you that you have done a thorough job of mixing.

 

The trick is to prep in small batches so if you need to cover a large area prepare say 4 golf ball sized blobs of filler and lay down a small amount of hardener next to each one. Mix each blob with its hardener and then blend it all and mix again. As long as you didnt go nuts with the hardener and its not 100 degrees outside you should have plenty of time to do this and get it on the panel.

 

For doing a lot of filler work these tear-off mixing pads are fantastic. Saves a lot of work trying to clean up those plastic mixing slabs. http://www.eastwood.com/quick-mix-board.html

 

Stan, at the prime/bondo/block-sand/putty phase.

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Similar but much more expensive.UPOL D is fine enough to feather out like a stopper as well as being a very good filler.

Stan I use a piece of 18SWG sheet steel 12" X 8" to mix filler on which is easy to clean off with thinners or if you have left over filler on it can be DA `ed off, after 30 years its still not worn out.

Stuart.

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Similar but much more expensive.UPOL D is fine enough to feather out like a stopper as well as being a very good filler.

Stan I use a piece of 18SWG sheet steel 12" X 8" to mix filler on which is easy to clean off with thinners or if you have left over filler on it can be DA `ed off, after 30 years its still not worn out.

Stuart.

 

LOL. I used up all my 18ga making repair sections. I feel like Frank on Some Mother Do 'ave 'em who ran out of wood and had to use the top of his toolbox.

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Isn't life cruel at times. Yesterday I won the Euromillions but sadly not all of them, only £6 of it.

 

I also had enough paint in my tin to do one good coat on the wing.

I decided to paint the whole wing, foolishly believeing it would be better than touching up the area that I had to repair.

The primer went on well on Monday.

 

Today I applied the top coat. At first (yes you guessed it - disaster) it looked good, in fact very good. But as the seconds/minutes went by tidal waves, neh Tsunami's of runs started to form. I repositioned the wing so that most of it was horizontal, but too late.

Never mind, when it is dry I shall rub it down and do it again.

 

That would be easier said than done - I've just used the last of the paint.

Thankfully I have all the details of the paint. I googled Lesonal and find they are in Abingdon. So off I set this morning, empty tin in hand.

When I arrive at the very nice building I'm thinking this isn't any old paint shop. It wasn't any old paint shop, it was head office.

A very nice girl treated me like any normal person (how sweet of her, little did she know) and gave me details of the local distributor.

 

Off I went to Cowley, near Oxford, and eventually found the place (without satnav).

The very nice lady behind the counter welcomed me but said the paint I had didn't come from her shop :blink: bu99er!!!

After a quick scan of the computer she cheered me up even more by saying that some of the constituents were no longer available.

'However fret not' she opined. There is a paint on the system that should be the same. So with 1/2Ltr of my errant unknown paint I trolled off.

 

Needless to say when I got it home it wasn;t even close.

 

I rubbed the runs down on the wing and it looked quite nice again. Tomorrow I shall speak to my man that did me an aerosol of a good match and get it as a 2K solid.

 

Isn;t life wonderful

 

Roger

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Roger

 

Will your TR4 be hybrid powered or just electric?

 

I have a feeling that all fossil fuel will be exhausted by the time this jalopy is on the road :P

 

Seriously, I'm an avid reader of this saga and have learned many tips and tactics from you over the years that this rebuild has gone on for.

 

The main thing I have learned is to let the professionals do the work! :D

 

(you know I'm only pulling your leg!) ;)

Edited by dykins
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Hi Peter,

the problem with quite a few of the problems I have is that they were put there by the 'professionals'.

 

Hi Alan,

I think you are right about the painting but I'll see how far I get before surrendering.

 

Roger

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Hi Alan,

thank you for your confidence in me (you foolish boy). It is simply convenient to do it myself at present.

However I think SWMBO would disagree having spent the day getting 1/2Ltr of paint that is the wrong colour.

 

The overall effect of what I did the other day was very good if you ignore the runs, flies, dust, airbourne seed pods and the odd bat.

I can't remove the bat by hand as I haven't a license but they sand quite well :o

 

I am at present making a tent inside the garage that I can spray in and keep the world outside. However it looks like rain soon so the tent needs to be slightly mobile :wacko:

 

Roger

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God took a hand in this saga today and we were almost taken out by a bolt of lightening.

 

Breakespear Crematorium in Ruislip , in a direct line with us, was struck by lightening and it took out their phones.

 

Our TV went off for a couple of minutes in a crucial part of Time Team, Roger was on his way to a paint shop in Hanwell in the TR4a, lucky he didn't have the same size hailstones we had here.

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