Owner built on a budget;

[James Stern]

Ray, I hope all is well for you and the crew. You must have had a very busy Saturday and Sunday.

Jim

[Hray]

Sunday jan 31, update;

Well, we may be over the hump;

Here is a 24 hour phot update and progress report.

My day started at sat 7 am. building a fire in the back room and getting shop cleaned up. Craig showed up at 8 am. We swept and took all extra stuff out of the shop, here is detailed update;

9am sat; We began to finish taping off the car, here are some pictures of what it looked like at 9am.

9 am sat;
you can see my filter system on the fans, the filters are more to keep the bugs and dirt from coming in more than filtering the overspray out,

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/...f730f44a_b.jpg

here is another shot of car, you can see we covered up the shelf in background rather than taking it out of room and we still need to finish masking.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/...3918586d_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/...5ee404f7_b.jpg



Here are the pictures at 11 am on saturday;

finished the masking of car to the floor, not allowing overspray under the car, as well as it not allowing any possible dust from under the car coming out onto the paint job
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2711/...9520ecc0_b.jpg

another 11 am shot, the doorway with the filters will filter some particles coming into the paint booth, plus in this room behind the filters is where the wood burning stove is located, this will preheat the air so when we turn on fans the air coming into shop will be warm already to maintain a reasonable temperature. you will also see two air hoses, we used two paint guns at once, craig painted the driver side of the car while I painted the passenger side. this way we should be able to keep all paint going on to a wet surface to possibly eliminate as much orange peel as possible.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/...aa7779f8_b.jpg

craig is still masking up stuff, we have spent tons of hours making the underside neat and finished, we do not want it messed up with paint getting thru
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/...c49dac9f_b.jpg

Sat at 7 pm photos;


we now have sprayed the sealer, sprayed the stripe color and finally gotten the masking for stripes done, I will admitt those stripes kicked our butts good, we both underestimated how long it would take to actually get them on and ready for body color.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/...3bbd5293_b.jpg

craig is tacking off the car getting ready for the body color;

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2800/...886c0bb4_b.jpg

sat 10 pm report, we now have 14 hours already in the day of paint, we have finally gotten the body color on and waiting to remove stripe tape and paper for clearcoat;

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/...6bee725d_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/...0c0b9786_b.jpg

sunday 1am update;we are now on the 17th straight hour since we began this phase.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/...6d40586e_b.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/...1a0a36f3_b.jpg


Sunday 9am, yes we did get to bed, but I did not relax that good, just wanting to really make sure we did an adequate job and wanting to see if the gremilins came in during the nite and attacked the project.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/...47564eb0_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/...be6ed101_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/...1ce4baef_b.jpg


we got a couple sags on the clearcoat, nothing really bad, and no real bad dirt nibs, we were afraid of bugs, we were killing them all nite in the shop, but fortunately not one single bug got in the paint.

I have taken most of the day off, only removed some paper and took a few photos, and mainly today was tylers birthday party, he came out to chek out the new paint and of course liked it, but I have a bone to pick with Riley the other helper, the other nite he called it a 'girlie' car because it was pink. But what does a 6 year old really know.

We feel this was a major hurdle, of course still lots to do, and still block sanding the clear and hours of buffing and polishing yet to finish the paint.

If you ever get a quote for anything less than 5K for someone to paint your cobra, I suggest you jump all over it before the ink dries on the quote. Every Cobra painter and builder is now my idol.

stay tuned as we are on the countdown, just 2.5 weeks to total finish.

[*13*]

Hot damn! You're finally painted! Looks Great!

[Hray]

tuesday nite update:

750 hours over the last 75 days, 15 days to finish.

For the last two days we have been sanding and polishing the body. the body is now done, and tonite I covered the dash with vinyl and began to reinstall the switches and guages.

We first sanded with 1000 grit, then went to 1500 grit, then with 2000 grit by hand, Then we used my air Dual action foam padded sander with 2000 grit first then sanded with 4000 grit, after that has all been done craig then began to polish with the air buffer foam pad on larger areas. i put the hook-it foam pad on my DA and got the front nose and rear and other corners and places were more care was needed.

The other parts are ready for air polishing. Craig will get those tomorrow and i will finishe up the carpet padding and carpet and install the dash. With a little luck we might get some bright work reinstalled.

there will have been about 75 hours invested in the paint sanding and polishing after the paint was on the car. We already have 40 hours in that activity. Can hardly wait to see some of the chrome up against the paint.

Criag and I agreed today that this paint job is the best job that either of us have produced, all metalic laid down perfect, no major imperfection so far anywhere.

Will have some pictures hopefully tomorrow nite, just too tired to take time up load tonite.

[James Stern]

Ray, Cn understand the too tired. I was surprised that you posted at all. Those of us following your build have an idea as to how much effort you and your crew are putting into this project. You're close now so try not to wear yourself out. Thanks for all the updates.

Jim