Well I'll be .....

Hey there,

Went to view my car in the body shop yesterday. Spend an hour talking to him. I always seem to learn a million things in that short hour!

In general, the car is almost as bare as it should be. So far the only thicker filler was found on the tail light panel. The rest of the car was quite filler free, though not completely.

What amazed me most, was the process used on all loose sheetmetal and the finish it left. Fenders, hood, trunk, headlight buckets, etc...all were subjected to a process like powder coating yet different.

What they did was the following. All panels were put in an oven for 24 hours which baked off the paint in every nook and cranny. Then all panels were media blasted to a smooth 100% paint free metal shine. After that, the panels were put into an electrically charged paint bath after which they were put in an oven at 180 degrees Celcius to harden. The process leaves a very smooth and hard black finish to the panel.

The biggest surprise was however that all panels completely survived the process. Why a surprise, well the stuff is 35 years old and goes in the oven fully painted. Any wholes filled over with bondo don't show up until all the paint is gone. Yet there was no damage to any of the panels. Only the passenger door has 3 small pinholes in it, this will be fixed of course. The cost weren't even very high considering the amount off loose body panels on a fully stripped Mustang.

This really amazed me, and once again confirmed the outings of body shops that my car looked solid. When I started stripping the car that was a great fear.....what would come out from under the paint. Some bondo was expected, but this little is a pleasant surprise.

I can't wait to see it painted.....

Just wanted to share this process with you.




Columbo

First time rolling restoration, 66 289 nearing completion.