The $300 Dollar Automotive Paint Job and Frankenstein
September 10th I successfully attended the All
British Field Meet, driving my 1957 MGA; a year of hard work resurrecting a junkyard MGA came together for my pointless
self-imposed deadline. I felt success. But, September 11th I was presented with a conundrum. How would I protect my
bare-metal car from the coming ravishes of rust and winter?
Still, I didn’t care much.
We (my family and I) were enjoying the car. For
something I’d not tuned or aligned, it was behaving remarkably well. The car is delightfully enjoyable to drive. A
larger motor, front disc brakes and taller gearing make it a nicer cruiser
than my last MGA. A warm fall added to the enjoyment.
Several things were at play though, pushing me towards a paint job.
Earlier in the year,
when I naively thought I’d have the MGA painted before the All British Field
Meet, I’d bought paint and catalyst that was designed for warm Summer
weather. The chemical process for
urethane paint requires the temperature to stay above 50 degrees for 24 hours
after painting, and my catalyst was designed for 70-80 degrees. Mid-September, in Oregon, the temperature
window for painting the car with these chemicals was closing.
And, I had a nagging irrational sense that rust was actively eating away
at the car at a rate faster than likely.
Pat Ganahl, a prolific chronicler of the hot rod scene,
passed away in a drag racing accident in late August; exploring his written works
I’d come across his book, How to Paint Your Car on a Budget and I’d been
studying it. The impetus to paint the MGA was growing.
The weekend after the All British Field Meet I was working
graveyards, but noticed an advertisement for an estate sale at one of the fancy
houses on the hill above our town. In
the advertisement’s pictures was a 66 gallon air compressor. Just what I needed to run a real paint spray
gun.
I woke up, after an hour of sleep, and stumbled to the
estate sale. We were lined up outside
the estate and at 8 a.m. the gates opened; we all pushed and shoved each
other in a sprint race to the junk… I mean, treasure.
The people that organize estate sales probably live for the
eight o’clock openings; it must be hilarious to watch. Humanity on display.
I barely made it to the air compressor first after a grandma
gave me a hard elbow to the stomach in her efforts to secure a limited-edition
blow-form Santa that had been left fading outside for ten years.
$300 dollars lighter, I was attempting to load the
large compressor into my truck. Standing
in the truck bed, I was trying to pull the compressor up and onto the open tailgate. A friendly passerby offered his
assistance but I wasn’t aware that this
gentleman had muscles like a gorilla. As he pushed from below the compressor
became light as a feather and temporary airborne. I fell backwards and the
compressor landed on top of me. It hurt… a lot.
Did I mention that the truck bed was also full of old decking wood I’d
not taken to the dump yet? People talk
about being figuratively butt hurt. I
was literally butt hurt. Seriously,
sit-ups, etc. have been quite painful since this incident.
The compressor equated to “game on” for painting the MGA.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized buying a big compressor is
only half the cost and effort. I had to
rewire the compressor, wire a 240v outlet into the garage, conduit the power,
then design and build my air delivery system.
I now have air hoses running across my garage, water traps, filters,
regulators and desiccant water removers; all of this is to keep water from
being in the compressed air (a byproduct of a hot compressor). If water makes it to the paint gun you can
get “fish eye” marks in the paint. To
Pat Ganahl’s credit, whose instructions I followed, I don’t have a single fish
eye in my paint job. I’ve got 99 paint
problems, but a fish eye ain’t one.
Unfortunately, to put together this air setup, I supported
that despicable entity, The People’s Republic of China (PRC). China’s social credit scores, forced
abortions, human rights abuses, quasi-caste system, etc. disgust me. Yes, I know that American liberals think that social
conforming, abortion, and social shaming are noble endeavors, but there are
still some of us old-fashioned people that believe in the God-given value of
each life, even the lives of babies and Christians. As such, I hate what the PRC stands for and
does. Yet, almost all of the tools I
bought for this job had a “Made in the PRC” sticker. I genuinely felt shame. But whenever I checked outside Harbor
Freight, the same tool would be 3x more expensive… and still no guarantee that
it wasn’t made in China.
Here I offer my apologies to the oppressed in China for my
piss-poor spending habits. I’m not sure
I can afford to buy “Made in America” tools, but I am sorry if I help prop up
the leaders in China. Although, the
liberal corporate values of some American corporations aren’t far from the
PRC’s, which is why they’re such good bed-fellows in business.
Anyway, back to the MGA… my car was covered in dents, poor
previous metal repairs and rotted rusty metal. I worked on the metal furiously, cutting, welding and shaping, knowing
the warm days of fall would soon end.
The hammer and dolly process of beating out dents was fun.
For me. I wish I had more time to
explore it. I could get my metal pretty
darn close to straight, but I don’t know how to get from tiny hammer marks
(brains, I thought it looked like) to perfectly smooth metal. I’d like to figure it out.
Unfortunately, my neighbor did not think hammer and dolly
was fun. He doesn’t go to an office
anymore, he’s now a “remote worker”, so he stays home getting mad at the noise
I make… every day he’s home now, expecting us to respect his new-found office. He came
over, belligerently berating me, about me doing hammer and dolly at 3 PM on a
weekday in my garage. If he’d been polite, it probably would have changed my reaction substantially. As it was, I suppressed what I wanted to
do to him, and told him, “I’m allowed to hammer in my garage on a weekday, and I’m not stopping until I’m done”. He wandered off to his work’s Zoom meetings, vaguely threatening litigation.
But, after considering hard what Jesus would want me to
do, I stopped hammer and dollying shortly after. Philippians 2:3 came to mind, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” I certainly wanted to spend more time hammering away. If you see a few deeper dings on the car, now you know why.
I decided to not apply any bondo. Bad experiences and a lack of
time were the biggest reasons. Since I
made the decision to not use bondo, I’ve been looking at other cars to see if
anyone else makes that decision. It
seems like “no” is always the answer.
Seriously, every car is straighter than mine. I guess I’m weird. In reflection, how many
people try to restore a junkyard car a tree fell across? Possibly a dumb move from the start. To my credit, I was right, the car didn’t
have much rust. But it had dents. Many dents.
Bad dents. Structural dents. And the parts that looked straight were
hiding more dents, and odd old gas brazing repairs, under thick bondo.
After I wrapped up hammering, I built a paint booth in the
garage. Harbor freight plastic, some
house air filters, a few 2x4s and huge squirrel-cage paint-booth fan I found on
Craigslist did the job well. I was proud
of my booth. A design flaw would reveal
itself, but more on that later.
Because I wasn’t using bondo, I went from metal preparation
straight to paint. I hadn’t ordered an
acid-etching primer when I earlier bought my paint; acid-etching primer is needed to
get the primer to grab bare metal, so I bought ten rattle cans and
acid-etched the car by rattle can. There’s a trigger that mounts on the cans that makes rattle can painting much easier on your fingers.
The acid-etching primer stressed me, because the primer
wasn’t part of the Summit Racing proven painting products that I was trying to
stay within. I still have some fear that
all my paint will wrinkle as the acid-etch primer ages underneath. I gave the acid-etching primer a (very warm) week to harden
before painting the car. The acid
etching primer was thin, so I’m not sure how much it can shrink with time. I’m still a little worried.
I used high-build primer next, in the hopes that I’d knock
down some of the tiny body marks with sandpaper before painting my color, but time
became a factor again. Long story short,
considering times when I’d have the house to myself, and the impending weather
forecast, I decided to go straight from primer to paint, on the same day,
without sanding the primer smooth.
I’ve never shot auto paint with a real paint gun before. Still, I should have listened to my gut. It seemed like the paint was going on a little dry,
but I reasoned that it must just be how paint guns shoot paint. In reality, my gun was shooting dry and the
end result is described as “orange peel”.
Orange peel is the paint drying to a texture like that of the skin of an
orange, rather than smooth.
Also, because I didn’t smooth that high-build primer, it compounded the orange peel effect.
And another contributing factor was a failure of my paint
booth. Although I’d bought a fancy fan,
it still didn’t move enough air to clear out my paint booth while I was
painting. It would get quite foggy in my
booth and I’d need the ten minutes between coats for it to clear out. I didn’t realize that the fog from
my gun was also painting green haze on everything as it fell out of the air. It even got behind masking tape/paper/plastic and I
now find myself buffing stuff that was taped off. Buffing off this haze of
green paint doesn’t work well because the green paint has chemical hardeners in
it, but what it fell on doesn’t, so the paint I want to stay on the car often
comes up before the green haze does.
I’ll probably need to repaint my wheels.
I think this green haze, caused by the paint booth’s mist, also
contributed to the orange peel.
The good news is, you can sand out orange peel, to some
degree. Especially when you put the paint
on thick. But, knowing I didn’t put the
paint on thick (by trusting my gut; remember, I think I laid the paint dry), I don’t want to sand too far. So, I sanded some of the orange peel out, but
not all of it and it is still there if you look close.
The sanding/buffing process is fairly rewarding when you get
to the final stage of buffing and the gloss of the paint shines better than when
you started.
(Update: With my calipers I measured some paint that flaked off masking tape. It looks like my paint
job is about 9 mils thick, which is ok. I did spray three coats of primer and four coats of color.)
Bolting dented body panels back together, with fender piping (little strips of decorative trim between panels) is quite the rodeo. I envy people with straight, dent-free cars.
The MGA
took its first painted trip around the block October 23rd. Oregon has been dumping chilly rain since October 24th. Looking back, I’m not sure how I lived through October. I travelled to a wedding, picked up some overtime, coached my son’s flag football, re-built my deck
railing and raced the Locost, in addition to painting the MGA. It was a busy month.
I love the painted MGA.
I added the receipts and all the paint I applied to the car cost $300. I bought all of the paint from Summit, even the non-Summit rattle-can acid-etch primer. I’m happy with every
penny. Money well spent. So far, as long as that primer doesn’t destroy everything.
Let’s be honest though.
The tools and disposables sent my total costs to $1,500. But I’ll use the
compressor and buffer for years to come (God willing), so that’s $700 that will continue in use for many other projects.
If you’re considering a cheap paint job, here’s a short breakdown of some non-paint costs (at Chinese made, Harbor Freight prices):
- Used compressor – $300
- All the air compressor filters, hoses, fittings, etc. – $300
- Large used paint booth fan – $150 on Craigslist… but consider two.
- Masking paper, masking tape, house air filters, plastic, 2x4s, tack cloths, rags, Harbor Freight spray guns, mixing cups, etc. – $300
- Harbor Freight buffer and a variety of buffer foam pads – $150
- Buffing compounds – $60
I’m happy with my $1,500 dollar, one-month paint job, but I have a feeling I’m going
to constantly field comments about the dings and dents. I’m dreading the comments. The introvert in
me does not look forward to explaining my decision-making process over and
over. Maybe I should have used bondo and painted in the Spring, that way I wouldn’t have to talk as much.
The green Summit Racing paint color seems appropriate as an
homage to British Racing Green (BRG).
The funny things is, MGA cars were never sold by MG in BRG. There were a few factory race cars painted BRG,
but no production cars.
I think the green paint is also appropriate because the car
is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster. At
a minimum, the engine, brakes, rear axle and trunk lid are from different
cars. And I’m making trim decisions that
are not true to MG (see my beehive rear brake lights and front turn lights).
So, I’ve decided to call the car Frankenstein. Yes, I know that Frankenstein was the Doctor,
but Frankenstein’s Monster doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. The dings, bumps and scars on the car also
factor into the name. And, I
resurrected the car (maybe that makes me Frankenstein); the MGA was dead in a junkyard when I
collected it, and I harvested parts from several other cars when I pulled it from the graveyard. “Frankenstein” seems right. So, I present to you, my Frankenstein.
I still managed to get the Locost out for an afternoon autocross. The first lap it ripped.
Complete blast. Then the second lap I mashed the throttle cable too hard and
pulled it out of its mount again. I have
to rethink that throttle cable setup; I need to add a physical stop to the
pedal to negate my heavy foot. A
motorcycle twist throttle setup was not meant to handle the leg’s muscle
and weight. The third lap I did with the
throttle cable all sloppy and pulled out.
The fourth lap I had the cable jammed back in place until the last segment of the track, when the cable pulled out of its mount again.
Excepting the throttle cable, the Locost is a little ripper at
autocross. I loved my first lap. If I devoted some time to improving my
autocross skills, and bought some sticky tires, I think the Locost could climb towards
the front of the pack. Showing up once a year, and with the car broken, the
Locost finishes middle of the pack in the non-conforming cars. Which isn’t bad considering there’s
straight-up trailered race cars in that group. A real Caterham Lotus 7 attended and
had the fastest time of all the cars/classes that day.
Now that I have Frankenstein, the question arises, should I
have two cars?
Amateur racing might be a fun thing to do with my kids
(autocross racing, hill climbs, track days, etc.). We could develop the Locost to be our
trailered ripper.
But the kids driving is a few years off… and do I have the
time and resources to keep two fun cars?
Also, should I sell before Biden completely destroys our economy and
cars aren’t worth anything? Time will
tell. It might not matter if the liberals get me shipped off to a re-education
camp to adjust my old-fashioned views.
At least I’ll get to make cheap tools for car enthusiasts while I’m
there.
