Gimme Shelter!

So after a few days of filling and sanding in the garage, I realized that I was getting a lot done. The backside of the car was sanded smooth with 220 and ready for primer. The drivers side rear fender was getting close...awful close. I tried not to get that "screw it, it'll do" attitude, so I kept going over and over, looking and feeling for any discrepancies, spraying a thin guide-coat of dark grey primer and checking. So far, so good. Then, I realized after just 2 days that I was making a complete dusty mess in the garage.

Now, I'm not like some crazy garage clean freak, but when my tools, shelves, quads, and camping gear get covered with a layer of filler dust in 2 days, I knew I had to do something to contain most of the dust. Enter....the shelter.

I decided to take a regular camping shelter, 4 rolls of 2mm plastic drop cloths (it's about the thickness of Visqueen...maybe a little thinner) and ran the plastic all the way around the shelter. In the front, I draped the plastic around the hood, and for the most part, the entire area was sealed up, other than the underside of the car. With the torpedo heater right inside the shelter, the area (and the car) heats up in a serious hurry, and stays warm. It also helped contain the dust.



For the most part, I've spent the last few days (about 4 hours) finishing up the driver's side rear fender. It's just about done. Today I worked my way over to the passenger side, which is going much quicker and easier than the driver's side. The passenger side welds and metal were much easier, and I had got the hang of welding the channel much better on that side. My guess is that I'll probably be done with the back of the car soon, and be able to get some primer on it. I've made more progress on the car in the last week than I made in 4 months. This is good. The front half of the car has probably 1/4 of the body work needing to be done, so things are moving along well. I've sourced out some primer, and decided to go with a urethane multi-use primer that can be put over bare metal, rather than doing the etch, then a build primer. Once again, it's not going to be a concours car. I think I've opted to go with a basecoat / clear, and use flattening agent in the clear to get that suede look I'm after. I've heard too many horror stories about using Hot Rod Flatz metallic paints and trying to get them to lay right. So...that's up in the future, until now, I'll be chilling in the shelter, which is more like a suana when that heater runs for awhile!


Oh, and the Riviera sellers called back - the new motor and tranny are in, and the car is supposedly going to be delievered tomorrow. Gulp.




Here, the driver's channel is on it's last little spot coats...