Flatout

I’m getting the body up to painting standard. This involves fixing a few gross errors in the fiberglass. For example, I had to radius the wheel arches to suit the RS60’s final ride height. Furthermore, my square rear arches looked dumb and need to be fixed (on the good advice of Hulme’s, Jock Freemantle, so I’m not arguing).

The panel gap on the rear clamshell was a bit lewd. In places the clamshell was wider then the body. With shaking hands I cut the clamshell’s fiberglass inner bracing. A broom handle pushing it in one place and a sash clamp squeezing it in another forced it to the right shape and held until the bracing was patched. The panel line itself was a simple fill and file.

I fitted inner wheel arches to keep the crap out.

And then fairing, filling and sanding…. The inside-out-body-over-plug uses a lot of boat building methods. “Fair” means an even curve that’s pleasing to the eye. Boaties lay a flexible batten over the boat frame and plane back or build up to the batten’s curve. I used a 3mm fiberglass Roman blind rod, which can pull tight curves.

Pix 1 My cheek is still smarting from when I let go of one end

I’d suspected that I had a few ‘unfair spots’ even if it felt smooth to the hand. In my workshop I could never get a far off and natural light view of the plug and I’d gone overboard with a Stanley Surform and power sander. Sure enough, the batten showed I needed about 6-10mm fill on the cars bum cheeks (am I too fascinated by Beyonce’s backside), and perhaps 4mm on the top of the front wheel arches (older readers will suspect I’m also fascinated by Jayne Mansfield).

The batten also revealed numerous flat spots where the fibreglass had overlapped.

You can’t sand out a flat. It’s measure, fill, sand, measure, fill, sand, measure… well you get the idea. For convex surfaces sand in an X pattern with a padded flat board rolling your arms over the crest. For concave surfaces, sandpaper held over a piece of radiator hose works well. I used 40 grit followed by 80 grit and I’ll go to 120 before I prime.

Pix 2 I pushed fiberglass pegs into the body to mark the depth of filler needed

Another trick was tinting the filler with pigment (Gordon Harris) to show how far I had sanded. White, yellow, pink, …nice.

I also tried a black guide coat with mixed success. I didn’t want any trace of one-part guide coat paint under a two part final paint. There is dry guide coat but it’s expensive.

Ever inventive and a tightwad I used a black oxide (concrete colouring) slurry. Good points, it’s chemically inert, paints really black, shows scratches and flats, and washes off easily. Bad points, it is very messy. I’ve had a casting call from the “Black and White Minstrels” and next door’s cat, Snowy, now needs another name. In the future I’ll use an epoxy/ pigment mix as a guide ‘paint’.

Pix 3 Progress but when do you stop???

I’ll prime it in Interlux Microsurfacer, an epoxy that hides print-though and minor scratches and doesn’t produce the dreaded epoxy bloom. I plan to topcoat with Interlux two-part Perfection boat paint using the ‘roll and tip’ method. To further hide the bumps I’ll add flattening agent to reduce the high-gloss to satin, use a very light colour and slap on tacky decals in strategic places.

Most nights I stagger back into the house accompanied by my wife’s despairing complaints, “You’re tramping dust into the house!!!” and the neighbour’s anguished cries of “Snowy, Snowy”, and with arms so tired I can’t brush my teeth… Tonight will be no different!

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