Change of Colour - Painting the Panels

Now first off I must hold my hands up and say that none of this is my work.  I am very lucky to have a son in law who is an estimator/smart repairer/paint sprayer working for Mercedes Benz and all the excellent work you see here is his.  I would say take a bow Stuart, but he is a bit camera shy!  I think I managed to get a picture of his knee when we were fitting the engine but other than that, he has been elusive!

Anyway, when he offered to paint the car for me, I jumped at the chance.  Logistically, it was not going to be easy, so I took the decision, initially, to just get the removable panels done first. I can get the rest done later if I want.  So all the panels I could take off the car were removed and everything stripped from them and then taken to the body shop.

Now wouldn't it be great to be able to say this was your workshop.  Purpose built, spotless, all new ..... we can but dream!!

Now again I must hold up my hands and say that I was totally naive as to how much work is involved to get a great finish.  I thought he would only need a few hours!!  More like a few days!!  I have a new found admiration for the work he does.  First job is to prepare the surfaces.  Now bear in mind that the panels from GBS are pretty good to start with, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, no GRP panels will be, but good none the less, so no remedial work was required to 'fix' anything.

So he started with a sander to 'key' the surfaces.

Then it is in to the paint booth/Low Bake Oven.  The temperature is set to run at a constant 22c whilst painting and then turned up to 65c to 'bake' the paint.

First stage is apply an undercoat.

Next job is to apply the colour.  You can just about make out the paint name, it is Ford Imperial Blue as used on the Escort Cosworth.

Here is the paint applied as a base colour.  Looks very flat at this stage.

Then the magic happens when the lacquer is applied.

The finish is amazing but I nearly fell of my chair when he said they still have to be polished and a protective sealer applied!  I didn't think they could get any more shinny.

Next job is to, very carefully, start putting the car back together before he comes and finishes the job, probably after IVA.

So again, a big thank you to Stuart for doing such an amazing job and to Sytner Mercedes Benz for allowing him to use the body shop to do it.