Paint time!!!

A few more bondo additions, then sand smooth. Lots of sanding. Then primer. Thirteen hours worth of hand sanding including the post-primer sanding phase to smooth out the orange peel surface I created trying to prime. It wasn't me actually...its was inferior air supply (and learning curve).

Lesson learned...there is no substitute for displacement. Usually a phrase aimed at engines, but I'm applying it to compressor motors now. A little 6.2CFM/8 gallon compressor cannot drive an HVLP gun to give any sort of decent surface finish. Even if the gun does say only 4-6 CFM required, you need 3x that. The gun just cannot atomize the paint properly using a wimpy compressor; especially a thick filler primer with a 1.5 gun tip. Adding 20% more reducer to the paint helped tho. Leave the small stuff for nail guns.

So, a few dollars later, the 220V 16.4CFM compressor is on line and functioning very well. I painted 4x as much in 6x less time with way better surface finish results. Happy worker bee finally:-)

The culprits:

WIMPY WIMPY :-( HEFTY HEFTY :-)

Some pics of the car after post-primer sanding and paint dust wash.

And a couple after initial paint (Mazda White). Color accents are next, and then 4-5 coats of clear coat. I get to learn to spray metallics next.That'll be an interesting lesson.



Sneak peak inside....Dude! Where's my dash?