It has been beautiful in sunny North London this weekend.  Yesterday I took the Thruxton R to Edgeware to discuss the paint with the suppliers and loved it, a lovely ride.  Today I left the Thruxton under wraps and finished fettling the inner bodywork, degreased it and masked the underside.  The priming went well, one heavy coat and just a few runs in easy to sort places, :-).  The areas that I had filled looked much better which is pleasing.  So having missed out on the chance to go for a nice ride I decided I owed it to myself to have a small gin & tonic in the garden, it seemed only reasonable.

I am happy with the primer now and have got the decisions on the top coat sorted so the only real consideration is when I do it.  The process needs to be thus:

Rub down the top of the bodywork

Seal the joints

Turn the car over

Rub down the underside

Seal the joints and leave for 24 hours

Paint the underside and lacquer it.

Turn over the car

Paint the top and lacquer it.

This needs to be done in a smallish time frame and my weekends before the school holiday and our house swap to Thailand (I know, teachers, time rich and cash poor but bloody lucky in the summer) are limited so I am thinking of doing it when I return from Thailand at the end of August.  However, that seems like an awful long time away and so I am considering if I should just get it done.  Decisions, decisions.

I knew instantly that it needed another coat.  I ordered 3ltr of primer last week and rubbed it down today, alas no pictures.  I also rubbed down some other bits and pieces that need primer such as the bracket that the dashboard mounts to and that the steering column goes through.  I did get the car outside and found a few areas that hadn't received any paint so brushed those with paint in advance of the new spray session.

During the last few weeks I also applied some filler to a few areas that looked very distressed having been painted.  They look better now and will, I hope, look much better tomorrow when it is repainted.

So Rob popped round again yesterday and helped me get the car back on the trolley.  I then went to see Orchard Restorations' open day with my wife.  It is always interesting and I enjoyed talking to the paint professionals at the workshop.  It was nice not to be worried about door gaps and metalwork, felt like a real change.  I got a little more information on the blue colour code which was good.

Today I got back to the rubbing down.

I also did a little filler work on the sills.  I haven't rubbed down filler in 28+ years but the joy came flooding back.

Then it was time for paint once I had flatted the whole car.  

I had more of a challenge painting the top of the car than the bottom.  Having used 1.25l of primer for the base I ordered another 2l of paint and thought that it would easily be enough for two coats.  It wasn't so I found myself adding more thinners to the mix as I went along to stretch out the paint.  I did two coats but really, the second was  a little rushed (this is a polite way of telling you that I got a few runs).  Had I bought 3l of paint it would have been enough.  So I am thinking that really I should give it another coat but I don't want to do that because I'll need to rub the damn thing down again.  I will take it out of the garage on Tuesday after work if it is not raining and have a look and make my mind up.

It does feel good to have it in primer.

Happy days

Thank heavens, finished sanding.

Got round to masking and degreasing, much better activity.

Then painting.

Doesn't that look better?

It was surprisingly easy to paint again after what must be nearly 30 years.  OK, it was only primer but it was primer and a £17 spray gun (inc. delivery) but it still felt good.  Two coats of epoxy 2 pack primer and I realise that I didn't buy enough paint which is a shame as I was hoping to paint the top of the car on Sunday, oh well.  I have ordered 2 more cans of paint.  It is a lovely warm day in London so the paint went off pretty quickly and I didn't get any horror runs.  I will try to get the top rubbed down again, to take any overspray off, this weekend and paint it next Saturday.  Then the top coat over a couple of weekends before I head away for the school holidays again.  It'll be lovely to come back in September to a painted shell and to start fitting it up with the mechanicals, I can't wait.