Re: BigKev's 1954 Packard Clipper Deluxe Sedan

Posted by BigKev On 2009/4/28 12:48:13

Well another productive evening at class last night. I managed to get the outside surface of the truck lid completely stripped to bare metal. 40 Grit on a DA made for a quickly take down and leave an almost perfect surface to do the body work on. I need to skim coat a few small section of the lid when I had to pull out a few dings. But other than that it's almost ready for primer. I still need to flip it over and take care of the bottom side which is much worse. Mainly all the old sound deadening material that is coming loose.

I did a blunder move last night. I took the trunk lid into class, I had forgotten to remove the trunk lock assembly at home. So I took it off in class, and thought I had put all the parts (assembly, cylinder, emblem, bezel) back in the truck. So when I got home last night, I was unpacking everything I realized that the cylinder (with the chrome swivel emblem on it) was missing. This was the NOS, perfect cylinder and chrome emblem I found many moons ago.

The I realized that I must have left it on one of the workbenches at the college. Ah-crap, I figured it was probably long gone. But as I was one of the last folks to leave last night before they locked up, I figured I would try to see if it was still there this morning. And sure enough, it was still where I left it. Crisis avoided. So note to myself, take everything apart at home.

We finally had a chance to test out the Eastwood Concourse HVLP gun last night. This gun is designed to work on only 4cfm at 29psi, and based on that would be perfect for most home compressors. We had it hooked up to the industrial air supply at the college, so I have not had a chance to try it on a low cfm compressor. But it did spray superb. We used it to spray Auto Air-Color water-based sealer on a project truck with a 1.2 tip. Both Jerry my instructor (and who runs a well know shop here in SoCal), and his teaching aid commented that it sprayed surprisingly well and had a great fan pattern. One of them commented that he liked it better than his SATA RP gun as it laid down nice, with almost no overspray, and doesn't use as much product as the SATA RP does. While probably not on the same caliber as a SATA HVLP gun, it is a great gun for the non-professional user, or the professional who needs a 2nd gun and doesn't want to spend $600+ on a SATA HVLP gun. I bought the Eastwood Concourse Deluxe package with 3 tips (1.2, 1.4, & 1.8), a plastic cup, and a teflon coated aluminum cup, digital gauge and I believe it cost around $230. But they have small packages that are cheaper.

So far very positive feedback for this gun. The real rest will come Wednesday when we shoot water-based color, and also traditional clear with it. Stay-tuned.