Edmonton Motor Show

Look what we saw in the Volvo booth at the Edmonton Motor Show.

Did a bit of a double take, then took a bunch of photos

Finally - Painting

While the car was still up on it's side I sprayed the underside with the new "Old English White" body color.  Despite the tarping and a really powerful barn ventilation fan, the overspray in the garage was pretty bad.  Not recommended

For painting the rest of the car I decided to up my game a bit and build a spray booth inside the garage.  The furnace filters along the top draw filtered air in, while the heavy duty barn fan was set inside a plenum box I built with cardboard and scrap lumber.  It worked beautifully as a negative pressure enclosure, and kept overspray and fumes to a  minimum.  It's hard to get photos of the booth because it took up a large portion of the garage.

Once the body was painted, I partially disassembled the booth and rolled the car outside of the booth so I could tackle all the other panels and parts

Overall I'm very pleased with how the paint job turned out.  As a first time painter, in a home made booth I made some mistakes.  Any pro or car judge will see them instantly, but my goal is to have a "showable driver" car.  I think with some color sanding and buffing the car will get there.

Final Preparation Before Paint

Final Prep Before Paint

Some of the many small parts and bits that needed to be prepped and primed

Car back up on it's side to complete the final prep of the underside for paint

Undercoating Applied

So Much Sanding

I did not take any photos of me block sanding.  I did a lot of it and there is still more to do.  Also re-primed after block sanding the body and fenders a few times. Here's some photos of that.

I have zero experience painting, so I have learned many things the hard way so far  I have been learning a lot by following forums and Youtube videos. Autobody 101.com is one of the best sites for you to learn things, and hopefully learn from others mistakes...

One thing I learned the hard way is that a bad paint gun makes a mess.  I finally figured out how to use the paint gun properly, and after trying a few different ones I got my hands on I now use this.

This Oldtimer is an Astro 7, a Taiwanese copy of the Binks 7 paint gun.  I "borrowed" this from friend of mine, and at first glance it looks like it's a hundred years old and is probably a piece of crap, but I have managed to dial it in to lay down primer beautifully.

Panel Test Fitting

Installed the doors, nose and fenders to check for panel fit after all that patching.  Had a few issues around the rear fenders, but all in all it came together pretty good.

 Welding in recessed nuts for attaching the front fenders

 Test fit with new recessed nuts installed - Nice!

Applying filler and getting the body smooth.  had to pound a lot of dents out of the rear valence and the roof, but managed to keep filler to a minimum.

Set up my "booth" to shoot High Build Primer on the body.