Build thread - new paint and body for 220K mile SC400 by Asha'man

3 minute(s) of a 111 minute read

Hood before:

Hood after:

I used the blue Norton Rapid-Strip pads from Home Depot on my angle grinder. Takes the paint off right quick but doesn't harm the metal. I do have swirl marks all over as you can see, but I'm really hoping they're more visual than deep. Epoxy should tell me what the situation is and if I'll need to put some 2k primer over it. 

Or I could just clear it and leave it like it is? 

That was Saturday. Yesterday I built the paint booth in my garage with plastic sheeting, strips of cardboard from the box for my brand new water heater ($600 bucks I didn't want to spend last week), and a lot of duct tape and staples. 

Outside:

Inside:

Results of shaved antenna:

The first layer that will go on the car:

What I saw from my front yard when I finished up in the garage last night:

Yes, I live in the country.  Today the plan is to figure out what kind of ventilation I'm going to need. I have a box fan and a centrifugal style blower, and I'm hoping that the blower will outflow the box fan. If it does, it will be my intake and the box fan will be my exhaust, and I'll have a positive-pressure booth. This is what I'm going for because the positive pressure inside blows outward through any gaps or crevices, instead of a negative pressure setup which sucks dust and stuff in through those same gaps. We'll see what I have to work with and go from there. Once I've got that sorted out, all I'll really need is a respirator and a couple of zipper doors (and to finish masking) and I should actually be ready to spray for my first time ever.