My ERA visit

[fkemmerer]

Originally Posted by RAO-3

Definitely sounds like I need to talk further to the painter!

pstrickt, if you don't mind sharing, what did you have done? I'm hoping not to miss anything.

Ray

Ray,

Ron Randall did a bunch of work on my ERA prior to painting. First, he totally rebuilt the edges of the fender flares on my body to get a more athentic look.



Also, it is very difficult to get a smooth finish on a fiberglass body. To do this, Ron sprayed the body with multiple additional gell coats and guide coats and then hand blocked the car to remove all imperfections and get a smooth finish that will not allow the underlying fiberglass to "bleed through". Here's a picture after a gell coat and guide coat has been applied in preparation for blocking.




This step takes alot of work and is one of the major differences between an average and a high quality paint job. This sort of prep work followed by multiple coats of clear with proper color sanding and buffing create a perfectly smooth, high gloss final paint job as shown in the following pictures. I doubt that you will ever see a smoother, more perfect finish on a fiberglass body.





As mentioned in other posts in this thread, its also important to properly finish the edges of the cockpit around the dash, etc. to get an authentic look. You can see the results of Ron's work here in the following picture.



Note how perfectly blended the rolled areas by the dash and the door edges are executed.

Give Ron a call as he can explain these ideas much better than I can.

- Fred