I have read the forum for about 6 years. I have never posted but have tried to pick up as much information as I could by reading all the posts and sucking up information like a sponge. My car is a 1966 Ford Fairlane. I took a body and paint lab at my local community college and had a great teacher who helped me learn how to do body work. I knew how to weld so that was a plus. This car is my first attempt at body work and painting. The mechanical part of my car was very easy for me that I know how to do and did that first. Then did the floor pans and engine compartment and the interior of the car. My wife said to at least paint it one color so it has been red oxide primer since 2005. The body work and painting was all new to me. My first term in 2003 I did one front fender. The next term was in 2005 and I did one quarter panel. The next quarter I did at home and worked on the area at the back of the car behind the bumper. September 2009 I took the body and paint lab and again in January to finally finish the body and get it painted. When I replaced the first quarter panel my teacher Paul Beck had me overlap the new quarter panel over the edge I had left from cutting off the old quarter panel and used a cutoff wheel and cut through both panels to match edges. I butt welded the top edge to the original quarter panel and edge welded the panel to the door opening and tail light opening, that way it leaves the factory spot welded flange in place. I had a lot of other sheet metal areas I had to fix, doors, fenders, c pillar, trunk and there is a link at the end to pictures of some of my work. I spent hours and hours about 6 weeks of block sanding the body after I finished the body work. I had planned on painting my car at my community college paint booth but not enough students signed up so the summer class was canceled. So had to go with plan B and turned my garage into a paint booth. I purchased most of my equipment from Autobodystore.com. I picked my spray gun from reading over the posts and decided on a DeVilbiss 670G Plus, it worked great. The paint I used the base was PPG Deltron 2000 (DBC) the clear was PPG DCU 2042. I started wet sanding by hand then switched to the Airvantage Sander 3/32 throw and the Trizact, amazing is all I can say about the Trizact system. I would probably still be wet sanding if I was doing it by hand. I buffed with a Makita variable speed buffer and the orange and black sponge pads and used Sure Finish. I just wanted to thank everyone for supplying me with information especially Len. Here is a link to some more pictures some of my body work and my paint. Link to more pictures: http://ImageEvent.com/badhenry/fairlane
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