In the restoration industry everything that is painted is polished. If it is a show car then it is cut and polished. The “cut” refer to wet sanding the surface down top remove the orange peal for a glass smooth finish. Here are some of the parts and the body after the final cut and polish.
Roof was scuffed and painted black. Black has to be one of my favorite colors to pait as it show that you did the prepwork right, it will also show if you skipped a step or got lazy at any point. After final polish it will be a mirror finish as all black roofs should be. You will notice that the rear number plate was also painted gloss black to match the roof perfectly.
After final sanding the body, it was wiped down to check the reflection lines. Then came the final masking for paint. The final masking off was done once the car was in the paint booth. After spraying the red the roof will be sanded down and the black roof sprayed. Notice how the factory numbers come out nice and clear because they were masked off during priming and only received the final coats of paint. The final color is much darker than the pictures as the reflections in the booth make it appear orange.
Interior has been sanded and painted, the cross-member had to many defects and needed to be redone. The cross-member was masked off, prepped, re-masked and repainted for a flawless finish. Interiors are tough to paint as no matter how clean you get them debris comes out of all the cavities and gets in the paint, you just have to repair what is unacceptable.
The underside of the car has been undercoated and painted. You will notice in the first picture that the brackets/ mounts on the underside were not undercoated, just received the final coats of color. The masking on the final pictures is to prevent over spray when the interior is painted.
While waiting for a perfect color match for the Cooper, I took on what was going to be a quick turn around. All that was originally wanted was front fillet plates added to make the early style front end. Then he decided to replace the entire front panel. After the old panel was removed It was decided to replace the inner fender as both were toast and the radiator shroud was about to fall off. I pointed out that the car was the wrong color and he then wanted a complete repaint and new cross-member installed. So what started out as a week job turned into 5 weeks worth of work. Here are some before, during, and after pictures.
After bodywork and block sanding the body was pulled apart again for primer. The interior panels were also body-worked and primed. People often ask what sets my work apart, and I feel it is the extra effort to smooth out the interior and door jambs that others often miss.
I met with the customer and he noted that a few holes in the RH inner fender were not needed, so they were welded up along with some in the rear parcel shelf. He also gave me the bright work for the front of the car to be fitted before paint. What seemed like a simple task of fitting the grill and trim, was hours of refitting to make each side match and appear uniform.
Now that the mountain of metal work is done it is time to being slinging Mud(plastic filler) and priming and sanding. Here are a few shots after the initial primer and guide-coat. The extra holes in the firewall have been welded up and smoothed out.
Just finished polishing a tank for a customer, no not a mini gas tank but a motorcycle gas tank. It was a nice change to do something new, and keep a current customer happy.
