Don't Need No Stinking Paint

[W. MITTY]

This thread will probably be of little interest to non-Kirkham guys -- it is intended for those who are considering an alloy car and who might be delusional enough to want to do the sanding work themselves. Maybe someday someone will run a search for "sanding my Kirkham" and they will pull this up.

When I purchased my car, I decided that it might be fun to do the sanding. You know, garage therapy. David and the guys at Kirkham tried to warn me about the amount of work involved, but I insisted. David told me several times that when I came to my senses, I could bring the car back and have them do it. I scoffed at the idea.

To make a long story short, I called David this weekend and I'm taking the car back to Utah to pay them to sand it. Holy cow! The amount of work involved is mind numbing. Its fun, but the aluminum is boot hard, and it takes a bunch of elbow grease to remove even a shallow tooling mark or a scratch against the grain.

Now don't get me wrong -- I'm not afraid of hard work and I love to do things myself; I simply do not have the disposible free time to do the job within this lifetime. I'm glad I only live eight hours away -- the drive will be a heck of alot easier than sanding until I'm in my nineties.

Oh, and I don't need no stinking paint. You may recall that I had been thinking about a vintage paint job (before I decided to have Kirkham sand my car ) Today, I rolled the car out into the bright Arizona sun, and it is beautiful in its raw mechanical form -- looks like a fighter plane (um, a Mig maybe?). I don't know what I was thinking -- I am going with buffed aluminum and meatballs painted on in wimbeldon white. The best of both worlds, as someone else said.