1981 Aircooled first go at bodywork
Posted: 04 Oct 2015, 14:21
Roped the old man into helping me do some bodywork to my 1981 Aircooled yesterday.
I'm SO new to this, so here's my first go at doing some of the rusty areas.
SO here's the Van. She's called Pumpkin.
Here's the worst affected area for rust. There are spots all over the body, and it's clearly had some filler work done before which rust has pushed out again, but we thought we'd pick one area to try first.
And some closeups
Scraped the rust off with a chisel, then sanded back the rough edges with some sandpaper.
We used the Hammerite rust converter gel, which we had to reapply every 30 minutes or so for 3 hours. This converts the rust (iron oxide) to a thin layer of ferric phospate, which is inert and should, in theory, stop the rust from creeping. We'd actually meant to buy the Hammerite paint, but this seemed to work ok.
Wiped it down with cellulose thinners. Think the solvents are why Dad looks so happy.
Filled the holes. We used Plastic Padding filler. This stuff goes off super quick, you literally only get 5 minutes to apply it before its not workable. I'll be using slightly less hardener in this next time.
Sanded it back and used some more filler where we hadn't got enough in first time round. For next time, i'll definitely apply less filler. The more you put on, the more you have to sand off. Sounds basic. Rookie error.
Masked off the area.
Sprayed with some white primer. I've heard you don't really have to do this, but thought we should any way. The primer went on a bit grittily, i guess this was down to my spray technique.
Sanded it back and then started layering on the Orange. It is well worth watching some youtube videos on proper spray can technique. There is no way you can get as good a finish as with a spray gun, but if you keep a wet edge to your strokes without letting the paint run, it can look pretty good.
We got our paint matched at a place called Westobys in Hull. It's not bad, there is a definite difference, but i'm pretty sure every panel on the van is a different colour, so i'm not too bothered. When we do it again, we'll do the whole panel.
Here's the finished result, with a before and after pic.
Hammerite Gel:
http://www.hammerite.co.uk/products/rus ... er_gel.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Plastic Padding:
http://www.halfords.com/motoring/paints ... 2wod1TILzQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Westobys Hull:
http://www.westoby.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I'm SO new to this, so here's my first go at doing some of the rusty areas.
SO here's the Van. She's called Pumpkin.
Here's the worst affected area for rust. There are spots all over the body, and it's clearly had some filler work done before which rust has pushed out again, but we thought we'd pick one area to try first.
And some closeups
Scraped the rust off with a chisel, then sanded back the rough edges with some sandpaper.
We used the Hammerite rust converter gel, which we had to reapply every 30 minutes or so for 3 hours. This converts the rust (iron oxide) to a thin layer of ferric phospate, which is inert and should, in theory, stop the rust from creeping. We'd actually meant to buy the Hammerite paint, but this seemed to work ok.
Wiped it down with cellulose thinners. Think the solvents are why Dad looks so happy.
Filled the holes. We used Plastic Padding filler. This stuff goes off super quick, you literally only get 5 minutes to apply it before its not workable. I'll be using slightly less hardener in this next time.
Sanded it back and used some more filler where we hadn't got enough in first time round. For next time, i'll definitely apply less filler. The more you put on, the more you have to sand off. Sounds basic. Rookie error.
Masked off the area.
Sprayed with some white primer. I've heard you don't really have to do this, but thought we should any way. The primer went on a bit grittily, i guess this was down to my spray technique.
Sanded it back and then started layering on the Orange. It is well worth watching some youtube videos on proper spray can technique. There is no way you can get as good a finish as with a spray gun, but if you keep a wet edge to your strokes without letting the paint run, it can look pretty good.
We got our paint matched at a place called Westobys in Hull. It's not bad, there is a definite difference, but i'm pretty sure every panel on the van is a different colour, so i'm not too bothered. When we do it again, we'll do the whole panel.
Here's the finished result, with a before and after pic.
Hammerite Gel:
http://www.hammerite.co.uk/products/rus ... er_gel.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Plastic Padding:
http://www.halfords.com/motoring/paints ... 2wod1TILzQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Westobys Hull:
http://www.westoby.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
keep on top of it