Removing paint

[mbell]

I saw a recent Retropower uncut video this weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU21YWuf6wI

At ~5:50 they appear to be using a wood working plain to remove paint from a Jenson fiber glass body. I could see that as being both a good and bad way to remove the paint! Has anyone tried it on an Elan/+2?

[TeeJay]

I can well understand now why this costs so much but I imagine a big part of that is the paint stripping and fibreglass work

Jon
Without doubt, the stripping off the paint, particularly to the gel coat and completing the glass cloth corrections and repairs IS the major part of the labour costs.

The time taken to actually spray takes minutes, the preparation to paint, getting the equipment set up, air lines, compressions positioned outside of the garage, clean down of the workshop, mixing of paint and a final wipe down of the body with special wipes, takes slightly longer. Then there is the cleaning up of the spray gun and paint mixing equipment afterwards.

So I would suggest that the stripping and body corrections would approximately 50% to 60% of the labour hours.

The overhaul time period for spraying is quite long, because it’s important to have at least the minimum time delays between layers of the paint to allow for full evaporation and hardening before applying the next stage. So the question is how much does storage of body in the workshop cost.

Interesting that the repair was not done "correctly", how well did the repair last? Maybe it isn't as critical as we are lead to believe?

Mike.
The outer surface of the repair was OK as was the top coat.

My issues were the hidden areas under the wings and engine bay, there were areas of the joint with no matt or tissue over them. I resurfaced the whole joint area, so making it sound and structurally strong. Left as it was, any side impact would have snapped the font nose off.

Another example of poor repairs not being structurally sound, I am surprised the door did not drop; glass cloth repairs over paint??

[TeeJay]

I'd be interested to hear views/philosophy on old repairs - I have found some I presume accident damage(?) repairs (very hard 'filler') beneath the paint

Jon
As the paintwork over the repair did not have any issues, I would suggest that it ok to leave it.

I also found a similar repair and as yours it had been properly prepped for the 2 pack filler and left to hardened off fully.

On preparation for any coats of paint, I ensured the conditions were correct, temperature, humidity, surface preparation etc.

The paint has now 9 years old and shows no blemishes, so those very old filler repairs were good and I am well satisfied with the results of my workmanship.

I would also say it was not totally about cost saving, I had recently retired and I had what seemed to be oceans of time to occupy. Also during my student apprenticeship I was taught how to spray aircraft parts and as Mike, I did spray a metal car in my younger days.

Would I do the same again, no, not at my age.

Regards

[Andy8421]

Looking back through the old threads on this subject, plastic media blasting done by a firm used to working with glass fibre appears to be the quickest and least labour intensive approach, and the also the least likely to damage the underlying gelcoat. I had planned to use this approach on my much delayed restoration.

Is there a reason why those posting on this thread didn't go down that route?

Thanks,

Andy.

[jono]

Hi Andy,

My last Plus 2 was done that way - it took off the gel coat and even though the guy who did it veiled the whole car in 2 layers of tissue you could always see the matt weave through the paint in certain light. The end product was good but that persuaded me not to do it again.

I approached this professional soda blaster last week to discuss having this shell soda blasted:

http://www.rixmediaandsodablasting.co.uk/about_us.php

He called me and was extremely helpful and spent a lot of time talking about the ins and outs of it. However his advice was not to do it (a really honest approach I thought) because of the damage even soda can do gel coat on an old car - he said if it finds even a small pin hole it will start to open up the gel coat before the operator can react.

His recommendation was to do it the hard way, by hand - and that's from a professional classic car blaster.

[mikealdren]

The Classic Monthly car done by Jerry Thurston was soda blasted and was apparently as thin as tissue paper after they finished, apparently Option One had to do a lot of work on it.

[Andy8421]

Thank you for your feedback everyone.

I am going to have to review my choice of paint removal method.

Andy.

[alan.barker]

On my TVR 3000M the Bonnet was Media blasted and no problem.
There is a big choice of different Medias.
Alan

[andywatts]

Only thing I'd contribute to what's been said is that unless the body is in really good condition and virtually no craze cracks then I'd get down to fibreglass all over and then apply a surface tissue. You should try not to go beyond sound gel coat, but if you use the more dramatic paint removal methods (wood chisel, power sander!) and make some minor scratches and scrapes it is easy to repair them. Get the craze cracks ground out and filled, repair any major damage, cracks scrapes etc in the surface, and when perfect apply surface tissue and resin all over. This leaves an imperfect surface which then needs to be filled all over with the thinnest possible coat of P45 resin-based filler, and then sanded flat, being careful not to go into the surface tissue underneath. When it looked OK I then sprayed a high-build primer, and then sprayed black over the top - this is a help in final rubbing down as it shows the high and low spots. Quite laborious, but will give a solid surface and will stop the craze cracks coming through.

[Craven]

U-POL SMC. Filler.
I have used this to good effect with no long term problems. If you don’t at least try it you are missing an exceptionally good Modern product.
https://www.u-pol.com/uk/en-uk/product/ ... ced-filler

[jono]

U-POL SMC. Filler.
I have used this to good effect with no long term problems. If you don’t at least try it you are missing an exceptionally good Modern product.
https://www.u-pol.com/uk/en-uk/product/ ... ced-filler

I've had this product recommended by a few people - quick questions:

Is this for filling and levelling after a chopped strand matt structural repair or is it suitable on it's own for structural repairs as well?

or, would this just be used for small repairs - spider cracks, gel cracks etc?

Cheers

Jon

[TeeJay]

Jon.

There is a good description in the Body section B of the Workshop Manual, pages 4 to 16.

As a general guide, structural damage would require the area to be tapered off on either side of the fracture line and then a reinforcing layup of alternate layer of chopped strand matt and woven cloth applied to both sides.

Filler is used for pin holes, gel cracks etc, after suitable preparation, usually grinding out.

I will try to upload the relevant pages.

Edit:- Just looked in my Brian Bucklands book, The Rebuilding of a Lotus Elan, some very useful info and photos of body repairs in that.

Regards

[TeeJay]

Well, perhaps my skills with Adobe not great, I just could not save save a number of pages from the manual.

Ended up coping each page to Word, then saving the the multi page document as a PDF file. I sure I've completed this successfully before, need to research it.

Body Repair Pages.
???
Sorry it will not upload, probably because of size 5141KB

Now uploaded, see below.

Regards

[Craven]

SMC is a surface filler not suitable for structural repairs, Isopon P40 is a simple and effective small hole or damaged area repair another brilliant product in my view.
There are few completely flat areas on an Elan and grinding out damaged contours and following difficult reinstating is avoided by keeping the process to an absolute minimum, individual spider cracks and gel coat damage can be filled with SMC.
Added strength in SMC makes its use ideal when the filler run up to or around an edge. I have used SMC where the shut lines need some adjustment, I nice even gap around the headlight pods for instance.

[TeeJay]

Found a free PDF splitter on the Microsoft store.

Elan +2 Workshop Manual_split.pdf

Chassis & Body Repair Section

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