[Mike19]

Nice work Mikey. I'm sure the owner will be well pleased with your work and attention to detail. Looking forward to more updates.

Mike

 

[Tropturq]

Progress Update

From Mike 19

Nice work Mikey. I'm sure the owner will be well pleased with your work and attention to detail. Looking forward to more updates.

I thought that my Nomad was nice before Mikey started working on it. When he is done, it will really be a jewel. His work is very much appreciated! :congrats:

Mikey's work is top notch. His shop can handle anything, and his labor rates are very reasonable. I don't think that there is much that he does not know about these cars we all prize so much. I have owned Nomads for almost 20 years and he has already taught me a lot. If you need any restoration work done, Mikey has my highest recommendation. He has a passion for his work, and is a really nice honest guy.

If you visit Mikey's shop, you better not be allergic to cats. He has a lot of them and seems to love them as if they were his children. Personally, I am a dog person, but all of his cats are friendly and even my Australian Shepherd Copper had no problems as we visited with Mikey this past Monday.

 

[55wagoncrazy]

Thanks Steve,
Yes I love cats, and they are trained and projects are protected from their roaming. Mice must be controlled in rural areas and they are the best solution.

Dogs are always welcome and many customers have brought them into the shop and they are also WELCOME :shakehands: provided they behave! :sign0020:

I like to educate all my customers of what is going on with their projects. No slight of hand or invoice is practiced here. The owner is always allowed to choose what is best for them.

 

[Mike19]

Top Notch

I purchased some hard to find trim pieces from Mikey and he polished them to a show quality finish. He even threw in a couple bonus pieces for me. A craftsman to say the least and honest as well.

Mike

 

[Custer55]

Wow. There is a lot of surface rust under the paint. A good reason not to wet sand primer or leave it very long without a topcoat. Can you wet sand the primer with the epoxy sealer over the bare metal first? Or is that still a bad idea?

 

[55wagoncrazy]

The only time I wet sand is on the final coats of paint to be buffed. By then I know I have put plenty of material between the water and the steel body.

3 Things are needed to produce rust: Iron/steel. Oxygen/air. Water/moisture.

The challenge is to protect the iron from the other 2. Every coating or process used to protect steel has this dilemma to deal with.

SO WHY WOULD YOU WET SAND PRIMER? Most primers are, by design, a product used to increase the adhesion of paint. Paint is by design the protection.

By wet sanding primer it is faster and the person(s) doing it doesn't understand the untoward ramifications of it.

 

[oldjunkster]

I guess I am a little confused as to why only the Ivory painted area had this problem. I would assume (yes I know) the entire car was prepped the same way. Why would the Turquoise painted area not have the same problem?

 

[55wagoncrazy]

I guess I am a little confused as to why only the Ivory painted area had this problem. I would assume (yes I know) the entire car was prepped the same way. Why would the Turquoise painted area not have the same problem?

The darker pigment in the Turquoise is the only explanation. There are areas where it has issues, but not near the problems with the Ivory. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst, the Ivory was a 1 the Turquoise is around a 7-8.

I did discuss this with Steve and his determination was that he did not wish to go that direction at this time.

We will address it on a "when needed" basis. For now the issue of the motor swap and some other items related to that are more important.

 

[55wagoncrazy]

This week I rec'd the replacement rear tail lamps. These are Danchuck parts. I must say I was skeptical about them. My fear was just that. They are a high quality part. The chrome plating is top notch.

Here are photos to show the details.

First thing I wanted to check was the LH side and how well it opened and was faithful to the original. It opens perfect right out of the box. The turn knob is level with the outside bezel as the original is. The Gene Smith assembly was very poor in this area.





The Gene Smith set did not come with the internal rubber seals. Danchucks have them installed right out of the box.






Enclosed with each lamp was a complete mounting kit. This included the correct screws, clips, bulb and even a plug to fill the back up lamp hole. I was very impressed with the fact they even include the lower rear body clip that hold the bottom of the outside bezel in place. I have had to hand make this part for years because they always rust away.




This photo is used twice, In this view I want you to look at the general fit. This assembly was just set in place and no adjustment was attempted. Although it needs to be moved UP IN THE HOLE. The fit is EVEN BETTER than his OEM tail lamp was. I will need to be careful I don't build up the painted surface or the tail lamp will appear undersize.




As a very picky restoration expert I will have no problem using these on Steve's Nomad, or any other 56 Chevy.

 

[55wagoncrazy]

Steve's Nomad has been kinda hanging out in the front of my shop on the lift. I have been working on the final blocking on a 57 Hardtop I am restoring. Now that I have gotten the body and all of the outside sheet metal done, I have switched the projects. Steve's will now reside in the paint booth for a few weeks while I finish removing the Ivory paint and primer. I will be able to tape off and protect all the Turquoise to make the next step.

It is nice having a well illuminated SOLID METAL paint booth that can be used as a dirty booth this time of year. Then when needed it can be cleaned and wiped down for final paint as well. I designed and had this booth built for me when I was in Texas. I took it all apart and reassembled it here in Wisconsin. Sure Am Glad I Did!

 

[carls 56]

have those taillights on my 56 too, just like jewelry. :tu

 

[55wagoncrazy]

Today I began by taping off all the TRIM holes in the doors and quarters with Green 3M tape, from the inside. I spread a sheep of plastic over the complete project. I trimmed off the plastic over both quarters and taped the edge to the Turquoise paint. I ran a second layer of paper over the area I am going to be working on the most. This is mostly for the primer step, so it doesn't flake off the plastic when I spray and block the panels.
Finally, I ran a layer of green 3M tape over the edge. I proceeded to start removing all the remaining primer and what would be under it.





As I got further down the driver side I discovers lots of Bondo. It is kinda strange because I have not really found any dents to justify this amount of body filler. I removed it all right down to the tape line that is midway of the stainless trim.



Once that was all removed with 40 grit 3M paper on a large flat 8 inch D/A I went over the bare metal with 80 grit 3M paper on a 5 inch D/A. I spent a good bit of time removing surface oxidation where the primer had failed. I also noticed that most of the metal still had the factory phosphate coating on the metal. I removed this so all the metal is bright and shiney and will accept the epoxy coat.




Next will be the same process to the RIGHT Quarter, and the rest of the tail pan.

 

[55wagoncrazy]

After the LH side was stripped I test fitted the Danchuck tail lamp to the body. I had to do some "bump and metal adjustment" to the opening for the best fit possible.
This took about 15 minutes and I bet I have reduced the amount of body filler work I will do by 90%. So far, I have found only a few small dents that I could metal finish if it the back side would not get all messed up. So I will see how much was just sculpting the low spots to the high spots. I have found some high spots that can be just tapped down and metal filed to make them flat.........who ever did this previous work was not a metal worker/adjuster.....just a body filler slinger!!!




While doing so I discovered that the inner tail lamp mounting area had sustained some damage in the past. The lower two clip mounting areas were pushed in almost 3/8 of an inch. I got out my old dent puller and was able to get these moved back to where they belong.







Once the tail lamp was fit, I moved over to the tail pan.



Around to the RH tail lamp area and over to the quarter




You can see all the old primer and body filler all over the floor. I ware a respirator while doing all this DIRTY work



Next will be fitting the RH tail lamp as I did the Left side, then the final prep before the epoxy coat is applied

 

[ChuckDriver]

Beautiful work!

 

[55wagoncrazy]

After all the sheet metal was cleaned of all the previous primer and filler work, I redid the tape that had been used to protect the stainless trim around the windows. At this point I wanted to get the metal in epoxy and high build urethane primer BEFORE I went any further. Just as I had done on the LH tail lamp opening, I test fit the new Danchuck tail lamp on the RH side. Amazingly I don't have to do any metal adjustment. I taped off the remaining areas of the tail gate opening, as these will be done later. Both the tail lamp areas were masked off, making sure that the outside was left bare.. After all the tape and paper work was done I wiped the surface with a surface cleaner to make sure there were no oils on the bare metal.







The next step was several coats of gray epoxy.





Once this had flashed off for about an hour, I sprayed 5 coats of high build over all of it.






Then a 6th coat was thinned out and tinted with some green base to give the whole surface a contrast. This will all get blocked to show the highs and low areas.






This will be given about a week to fully cure before blocking.

During that time I will switch gears to working on the motor. Steve brought me some cast aluminum valve covers he will be using on the motor. These have already been powder coated ORANGE. So I went to my local paint supply store to get a paint match. They gave me a book with 825 ORANGE SHADES to choose from.........just what I need to do.......but It has to be done to match the color orange.

 

[Rick_L]

I know a photo can lie, but looks like those quarters don't need the filler they once had??

 

[55wagoncrazy]

I know a photo can lie, but looks like those quarters don't need the filler they once had??

And you would be correct.

I have finished the blocking of the LH quarter, and all the fitting of the tail lamps. I have used about one measuring cup of All Metal to fix all the problems I have found.

I have been attempting to upload photos and cannot get photobucket to upload them. I have had this happen before....so I will keep trying

Here are a few smalls for now.

 

[BamaNomad]

Mikey,

Do you use All-Metal over the epoxy primer just as you would use plastic filler?OR did you apply the All-metal filler to the bare metal before epoxy??

 

[55wagoncrazy]

Mikey,

Do you use All-Metal over the epoxy primer just as you would use plastic filler?OR did you apply the All-metal filler to the bare metal before epoxy??

I like to start using it after I have applied the urethane primer and begin the blocking process. I have found that this "process" works better by reducing the amount of filler used. I have done it both ways. I find the All Metal works fine on bare metal, not as good on epoxy primer, and better on the urethane primer, then on the bare metal.

The process I use shows up the low spots better and I can also straighten metal as I go along. Usually when I am doing a restoration I have complete access to the metal straightening process. On this project I cannot do that because the underside is already finished and we don't want to have to redo all of that.

Around the tail lamp openings I did do some metal adjustment with a dolly and hammers to get the metal shaped better.The back side is almost impossible to see from the underside. It reduced the amount of filler I needed by about 90%. In the photos you can see the shaping I did on the bottom edge. A large amount of this was needed because there is a re-enforcement spot welded behind the lower lip. There is a lead seam there also. All this area was in good shape. Just not good enough by today's standard.

As you can see from the photos there are some places the sanding process went through the epoxy. The next step will be to re-coat the bare spots with epoxy and then high build urethane primer again. Tint the last coat with a DIFFERENT color. I repeat this process until the surface is as straight as needed. the first few times I block I use 120 gt paper. After a few steps with this I will go to a finer grit like 240. and then the last will be 400. All done using the same blocks as the earlier coarser sandpapers.

 

[BamaNomad]

Thanks Mikey... I've always been a little uncertain about using All Metal over epoxy or primer.. so I appreciate your comments.