Well it's been a long exhausting/draining weekend. Took the car to a rented paint booth late Friday. We got there early Saturday and spent most of the day prepping the car and finding little things here and there that we were fixing as we went. It's amazing how long it takes just masking and cleaning the car, etc. The Saturday morning TV shows sure make it look easy
but it's a lot of work.
Here's the car on the trailer on Friday night. It was funny how many looks the car got on the freeway even in primer.
Once we finally got it in the booth we painted the tailpanel black and the front and rear spoilers. We used a flattening agent in the clear at a 70% clear, 30% flattening ratio. I wanted a semi-gloss type look. I didn't want the stock flat textured black or a full gloss black, so that's why we flattened it a little.
After that we masked off the back and shot a coat of sealer.
It was getting late and both the painter and myself were exhausted at this point but we shot a couple coats of base coat (BASF Diamont). However it was coming out mottled and tiger stripping. So we called it a night at 9 pm since the owners of the booth wanted to lock up.
Sunday morning the painter lightly sanded the car. He then took the regulator off his gun and just regulated it at the wall and shot two more coats of base that laid down good. Then finally the coats of clear (Diamont DC 5335 "Glamour Clear"). The downdraft booth actually wasn't that great and we still ended up with a little trash in the paint, but it at least allowed us to bake the paint. The booth owners let us leave it in there all day Sunday after the bake cycle and I went and picked it up at 5 pm.
So before I get to the "after" pictures, we had one BIG problem. The paint store had a hard time getting the limelight formula correct. Since I had painted the engine bay myself with PPG, when they first mixed up a quart of BASF Diamont it looked way too "pale" to me and just didn't pop. So who knows, maybe the PPG was never mixed right?
?? So because of that the painter shot a test panel using my old PPG and he took to the paint store to have them match the paint and so I bought 1.5 gallons of that custom matched mix.
The painter shot the front and rear valance off the car using the 1/2 gallon of paint earlier in the week. And we used the rest of that half gallon for the first two coats on the car. When we switched over to the full gallon late Saturday night that batch seemed more green, like it didn't have enough yellow (at least compared to the first batch). Since we had to get out the booth, I told him to keep going. So I guess the first mistake we made was not mixing the 1/2 gallon and the gallon together.
So anyway the car looks good, however I don't think it's exactly limelight because it's too green (at least in my eyes?). However, I know when I go to car shows it seems like all the limelight/sublime cars are all slightly different shades. The interesting thing is that in certain lights or under the camera flash it looks close. Take a look and let me know what you guys think.
I kind of like this picture that my wife took as I was backing the trailer towards the shop (keep in mind that the rear valance is from the first 1/2 gallon of paint). However in this light it looks pretty close to limelight???
In the fading light doesn't look too off:
However, with the flash off the camera in a dimmer shop bay it seems more like half way between limelight and sassy grass green?
With the flash on this time. Compare the rear valance to the rear of the quarter panel and you can see the shade difference.
Again with the flash on it looks close??? Maybe it's just all the gloss in the clear that makes it look so different then the old single stage enamel that I had on there?
Anyway, he's going to repaint the front and rear valances to match. Plus he has to color sand and buff. I told him to give me a few days. I might go down to the shop during the daytime tomorrow to look at it in the direct sunlight. I just need to make sure I'm good with the color as is.
The body work/paint job turned out pretty good. It's not perfect but it's not a $10K paint job and for what's he's charged me I'm happy with the overall work that was done. I know the panel fitment is better than it's ever been since I've owned the car.
Travis
72 Cuda
