I finally finished block sanding the gel coat, both original FFR, and the stuff that I sprayed.  I spent hours chasing pinholes with a trouble light and awl.  Seemed like every dark spot I poked, the gel just caved in and revealed a nice crater undereath.  Very frustrating.

Once all the noticable pinholes were filled, I sprayed two good heavy coats of Dupont URO primer.  The primer sprayed nicely except it orange peeled.  I'm still not sure why.  All I know is that URO dries rock hard, and I was ready to throw the whole thing out the window by the time I was done blocking it out with 220, then 400 grit sandpaper.  I sanded through the primer in a few spots while block sanding.  I was going to shoot a few more coats of URO.  However, since the body was very straight at this point, I decided to just spray some sealer instead of more primer.

I took most of the day Saturday to construct a makeshift paint booth in my 2-car garage.   I hung some light plastic sheet from the ceiling to the floor, then sealed it up as best I could with duct tape.  I put a box fan in one of the windows with a high efficiency furnace filter duct taped over the intake side.  I set it up to blow fresh air in, so I maintained a positive pressure in the booth.  That way air would blow out through any cracks, rather than sucking in and bringing dust with it.  I closed the garage door within about 20" of the floor, then blocked off half the opening w/ some scrap press board.  The other half, I covered with more furnace filters to stop the overspray from floating around the neighborhood!

Once the paint booth was ready, I wet sanded the trunk lid, hood, and the center section of the body in preparation for spraying the white for the stripes.  Finally, about 8:30pm, I started spraying the white.  I used Dupont Chromabase GM Arctic White #10.  Very bright white.  It took 4 good coats to cover the black sealer.   Thankfully, I didn't get any bugs or dust nibs in the white.  A blemish won't show too bad in the blue, but in the white it would stick out like a sore thumb!   Before shooting the paint, I wiped the car with Kwik Clean and tack ragged it.   I also hooked up a set of jumper cables to the defroster duct and ran them to a good ground.  This helps dissipate the static electricity that builds up on the fiberglass when you wipe it down.

Sunday was the big day.  I rolled the car out about 7am and cleaned up all the white overspray.  Don Gaboury came over about 8am and we started laying out the fineline tape that marks the edges of the stripes.  I used the 3M (Scotch Brand) blue plastic tape.   It's expensive, but worth every penny since it's waterproof and sticks well.  We were both amazed at how long it took to lay out the stripes properly.  I used the ERA stripe specification, but  added 1" to the width.   No perimeter stripes.

Once the stripes were layed out we masked off the stripes areas with masking paper and masking tape.  The idea is to cover the white areas that I wanted to keep as stripes, then spray the rest of the car blue.  Finally, pull the masking back off the white and spray the clear coat.

We were shocked when we started wet sanding the rest of the sealer, and the masking tape just about fell apart from the water!  Man, I was so upset, I was ready to give up.  Luckily, Don's cooler head prevailed, and we just moved on.  We peeled off all the paper and kept on wet sanding.  After about 4 hours of sanding, we cleaned and dried the car, and re-masked the stripes.

We rolled it back inside, wet the floor, wiped it down, and were shooting the Dupont Chromabase Ford Royal Blue Pearl by about 6:20pm.  Four coats of blue, a quick inspection for dust nibs, bugs, etc, and I was ready for clear.  We pulled the tape and masking paper almost immediately after shooting the last coat of blue.  I'm very excited that the stripes look perfect to me.  No bleed through, and a very sharp edge!

Somewhere around this time, the hot day (90 deg), the very exhausting work, the painter's suit, respirator, hood, closed garage, etc. got to me and I think I had a bit of heat exhaustion.  I had the chills and everything.  It's 90 degrees outside, probably hotter inside, and I'm shivering and shaking like a dog crapping razorblades!   Not fun.  After we pulled the masking paper, I took a break and downed about a quart of water and sat in the driveway re-couping for 10 minutes before going back in to do battle with the clear coat. 

The clear went very well considering my experience with basecoat clearcoat (this is my first paint job using BC/CC!!!!).   I had a couple spots where I was a little light and it orange peeled.  Nothing a little sandpaper won't fix!  I was done by 9:30pm and called it a night.  I later saw that I had a few dust nibs, and one bug about the size of a small bird!  I'll block sand him flat like the rest and just clear over him too!! 

When I came  in the house I jokingly said to Beth that I probably lost 10 pounds.   Well, I actually lost 12 pounds!  Not good.  I drank a bunch of water, and a bunch of beer before going to bed!  Beer is not the best re-hydrating liquid, but man it sure tasted good at that point, and I needed to celebrate a little!

The next step is to wet sand with 600 grit to make the clear flat and uniform, then I'll hit it again with 2 more good coats.  If the clear looks good, I'll go ahead and assemble the car.  After a couple months of drying, then I'll wet sand, coumpound, and buff the clear.  Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be re-installing the body this weekend!  Wooooohooooooo!!!!!

Friday night, I layed down the last two coats of clear.  Because I didn't want it to orange peel, I layed it on pretty heavy.  It helped, but cost me one big run.  No big deal, I'll sand it out and buff it after the clear gets nice and hard.  I have a total of about 1.5 gallons of clear on the car.  Probably a little much, but I'll sand some of it back off to make it nice and flat before compounding and buffing.  I got a bunch of bugs in these final two coats of clear.  Well, maybe not a bunch, 3 or 4.   Still pisses me off!  I'll wet sand the little buggers out.

Saturday, I invited a crew of people to help me drop the body back in place after being separated from the chassis for a few months.