Finalizing my position for my Roll bar

30th April 2011

Whilst I awaited my four coats of lacquer to go off hard I decided to get on with the fitting of the roll bar. This was to be moved as far back as it would go as my winged seats hit the old position when the seat was fully slide back. I therefore placed the roll bar right against the new 80mm body lift frame meaning that I could use a bolt through it for stability and eventually tie the two pieces of steel work together. The new position also did not sit on the fibre glass making it much stronger. The only problem with this position was that the rear hoop sat on the back neopolitan's hat so that the front bolt position hovered 20mm above the floor pan. I decided that I would need to make two pieces of steel to fit under here 20mm x 60mm x 55 mm. This would slip under the front tab and work better that washers to provide a solid base for the hoop. I placed the hoop in its position so that I could drill down through the chassis with an 11mm hole. I also drilled horizontally through the 80mm lift tubing so that I drilled its position to be able to drill right through the hoop. I repeated this for the other side and then removed the roll bar so that the body work could be left to dry. I would fit the 20mm x 60mm x 55mm blocks when the body was bolted back in place. Whilst the bodywork was still removed I used the 11mm drill to clearance the holes holding the body lift frame to the chassis. I checked each bolt would pass through without any restriction. I had sprayed the bonnet and side panels in black base coat when i sprayed the flake onto the body work . This did not require 2k Hardener so as I was running short and had used nearly all of my 1 litre of hardener up .

I decided that as I had to buy new hardener the with little I had I could spray the gold flake onto the bonnet, the dashboard and the side panels. It was quite difficult to match the same amount as I had put on the body work but hopefully have got a good match. The side pods came up surprising well but I managed to loose the station tube out of the end of the spray gun head and this put droplets of lacquer on the right hand pod. I guess even after spraying the whole body there are still things to learn about this gun. I have to wonder how much more there would be with a devilbliss or professional HLVP gun. I was however pretty pleased with the results of the Earlex PRO HV5000 spray station it had survived the spraying process and to be honest not done a to bad job. I still had 7 coats of 2k Acrylic lacquer to spray on all of the gold leaf components this left six on the bonnet,dash and side pods and four on the body work. The rest of the evening was devoted to moving some of my car parts to my new garage I had found. This hopefully would be a new base for the buggy and would provide a new site to reassemble all the components. I had one dead line in my mind this year BUG JAM I hoped I would have the car back together with an MOT this was only two months away and although it had took a day to disassemble the parts I new it would take much longer to assemble the parts despite the time needed to put the rest of the lacquer on the parts.

Paint costs for the paint, lacquer, flake, primer costs was mounting up and currently was at £379.00 just for the supplies, this was quite astonishing. I would discuss this in a later article when the painting was completely finished.

Spraying Gold Flake in Lacquer witrh a Earlex Pro HV5000

29th April 2011
I had made some inquiries about the quantities of flake to use in the lacquer. For one coat of lacquer I was told use 200g in 0.5 litre of lacquer which consists of a 40% solution of thinners. For multiple coats use 100g in 0.5 litre of lacquer which consists of 40% solution of thinners on the first two coats. I decided to use 100g or 4 oz of dark gold flake this came in a 1200g pot so I hoped I would have plenty to do the inside and the outside of the body. I was intending to get this sprayed so that I could bolt the body work back to the chassis and move the buggy to my new garage so that I could rebuild its electrics. The day started of cloudy and this was the same day our future king married his long loved college friend so I hoped that the weather would improve enough for me to spray. The morning had started at 10 degrees and was predicted to be 19 degrees by the afternoon. I knew I would have to clean the Earlex PRO HV5000 spray gun before spraying the lacquer as I had previously been spraying black basecoat and wanted to ensure none of this migrated into the lacquer. The mix i used was pretty good as it went through the gun well . I remembered to put two marbles in the pot to ensure it would be agitated. I noticed that the gun needed to have the spray fully opened and a full trigger held open to let the flake come through. Unfortunately I learned this while the gun was pointing at the inside of the shell. But I hope to cover this at a later date with an interior panel. Once the flake was running through the gun it would puff for about three of four bursts before you had to run it again at full throttle. I soon had gold flake all over the car and all over me too. I started having strange songs go through my head.

Once I had coated the inside an outside with flake , I started to make up some lacquer I made this up as a mixture of 2:1 the interestink think about the 2K acrylic laquer is that when you ad the harderner the mixture goes white opaque until it is thoroughly mixed and appears clear. The clear coat lacquer was then flash sprayed onto the car this way trying to ensure it did not run. This was then repeated every twenty minutes making up new clear coat lacquer each time for four coats. At this point the surface still had an uneven texture. I decided that I would let it harden over night and give it a fine sand with 800 grit wet and dry before putting a further four coats of lacquer onto the surface. The gloss after the initial for coats was not to bad although the pictures do not pick up the gold flake as well as the human eye.

Next time I will put more Lacquer onto the car and drill the mountings for the new roll bar position, or would the lacquer wait until I could get my hands on some candy red paint?

Spraying Base Coat with a Earlex Pro HV5000

27th April 2011.

With the primer coats now on the car it is important that it was rubbed down eliminating any sign of orange peel or other marks or scratches with 400 Grit Wet and dry . After some time I found that an ordinary sander was quite effective for the flat areas and the curves were sanded down by hand. It was pretty rough after this and it then had to be sanded by 800 grit to make the surface completely smooth. Once this was done some black basecoat was made up with 50% thinners to 50% paint. A small reveal spray was then sprayed on to reveal any further blemishes to the surface. This did reveal some undercoat drips and some cracks in the gel coat some which were filled and others rubbed down. The spraying process had to be done very delicately with the 2mm nozzle as the paint was very thin it had to be flash sprayed onto the surface and then on another before returning the first so as not to get to much paint on the surface in one hit. This prevented drips on the surfaces and lead to a gradual build up of paint on the surface.

Now although this sounds pretty easy it didn't lay on the car very well the first time so I used 240 grit to take it back to eliminate any surface problems before using 400 grit and then 800 grit to get back to a smooth surface that could be resprayed . The final spray of basecoat was much better and I was pleased with the results. I was eager to get on and get the buggy back to my garage to start building it up but the weather was not looking so good as it did and the strong winds made spraying very difficult.

I made some inquiries about the quantities of flake to use in the lacquer as I was ready to apply this. For one coat of lacquer use 200g in 0.5 litre of lacquer which consists of a 40% solution of thinners. For multiple coats use 100g in 0.5 litre of lacquer which consists of 40% solution of thinners on the first two coats.

Next time I would hopeful spray the Gold flake in the lacquer.

Prepping and Acrylic 2k priming with a Earlex Pro HV5000

24th April 2011.
After all the work on the body work was completed I decided that it was in desperate need of a respray whilst the body was of the chassis. My friend had just purchased a spray centre called the Elonex Pro HV5000 and from what I had read on the internet this seemed to be as good as the air compressor sprayers with the added advantage that it maintained constant pressure. It came with two needle sizes 2mm and 1.5mm. I opted for the 2mm as I was intending to spray 2K primer filler. I purchased a litre of Mipa prima filler to start with and this purchase was dictated by price unfortunately this was not to be a good move as the rep for Mipa had told the company I was buying the Primer Filler from that no thinners could be used with there product. This was catastrophic as the first coat showed that the resulting coverage was not good and covered in orange peal. This was a disaster as most of this primer needed to be sanded down. I was helped by a friend to do this and the primer was sanded back with 400 grit sand paper. I decided that at this point there was no option but to buy better quality paint I purchased 3L UPOL 2k Primer Filler a 5L can of thinners and a litre of 2K hardener and 50 measuring cups. The consistency of this product was much runnier and seemed to be a better product all round. Using the UPOL was pretty simple with the measuring cups as the cups had graduated marking on them showing the percentage of each component to add to make a good spraying solution. I started with 400ml of paint and added the amounts of thinner then hardener to the cup. I added the thinners first as I was told chemically that it is better to mix the hardener to a weakened solution of paint and not add the thinners to a mix of hardener and paint as it would not act as well. The first coat sprayed on fairly well. I repeated this with a a second mix of paint only to find that the sprayer would not spray. I was going to start to learn the problems with spraying with this stations very early. There are two problems that you must be aware of. the first is you must not stand on the vacuum hose as this makes drips come out of the gun onto your nice prepped surface. the second is that the little pipe that comes out of the guns paint pot and disappears into the head of the gun gets easily blocked. This severely impedes the pressure of paint out of the gun. The very last thing to be aware of is that the intake for the sprayer is on the underneath of the unit. This is a problem if your spraying on grass like I was. The solution to this was fairly simple i laid the sprayer on its side. With these four problems in hand the spray system sprayed fantastically.

I must add that if you are going to primer your car with 2k Acrylic primer filler. I would ensure that you have a good friend at hand to help you wet and dry the primer down after each coat as the flatting off of the primer is very labour intensive. It took two of us to flat of the primer with 400 grit wet and dry. I sprayed three coats of primer onto the body work. Prior to flatting it off to take the basecoat. The body work was then sanded with wet and dry 800 grit in preparation of the basecoat.

Next time I will be spraying the basecoat.

Increasing the hieght of my GP side pannels by 80mm

19th April 2011
I decided that after working on the bonnet of the buggy so successfully I would increase the height of my side pods myself.

I have also noticed that this month we have reached 11,000 visits which was fantastic. Please comment or follow this blog by clicking the follow button in the right hand side if you like my blog to give me feedback.

I decided the best approach to this was to use a marking gauge to mark off 15mm along the bottom edge of the side pod. I then used an angle grinder with a thin cutting blade to cut of this section. I made pieces of wood up to space the 80mm gap for the new height, this was checked again along the whole length of the cut before I started to fibre glass up the gap.
I used a piece of plastic cable trunking to span the gap I cut this out of a 4" box so that I just had a flat piece from the side and laid it into the gap using resin to adhere it. I then used fibre glass matting to cover the whole area on the inside of the side pod. This made a very strong joint which enabled me to remove the pieces of wood I had used to separate the two sections. I then used more plastic I had cut out of the box to make up the inside where the pieces of wood had been. You can see from the picture right that this made the side pod rigid especially when the side pieces where fibre glassed in place. The surface of the side pod now had a channel running through the front of it. I couldn't make up my mind what to do with this channel but for speed I used fibre filler P40. to fill the gap up . I had previously used this with good results and found that four 600ml tins was just enough to fill the two channels on both side pods. The picture right shows the channel filled with p40 and the reverse side of the other side pod fibre glassed over the plastic cable conduit. The P.40 had filled the gap nicely , however it gave a very ruff surface . This was rubbed down with 80 grit sandpaper to bring the surface back to a flatter finish . I then used p.48 body filler to fill the surface of this area. You can see from the picture that the side pods are starting to take shape . More sanding was then required to flat off the surfaces. When I was reasonably happy with the outside I painted the inside of the side pods with Hammerite Hammered black paint. This I had found was quite durable and made a much cleaner finish. I then sprayed the outside with High build 2K UPOL Primer filler using a friends professional spraying workstation. I hoped this would be powerful enough to spray the whole car

Next time I would need to paint the body work.

Re-in-forcing the beach buggys bonnet

2nd April 2011
I have to confess most of the week before has been a disaster as I was hopping to have got a lot further on . Having had a bad back and then a horrendous flue like thing. I have not felt like doing much but did manage to eventually do the work i needed to on the bonnet reinforcing its structure in a hope to stop the small paint crack lines that often appear in buggy bonnets.

The real problem I discovered with my bonnet was the thin weight of fibre glass it was made from. I really did not want to layer this up with new fibre glass and decided that I could re-in-force it with hollow channels which were fibre glassed giving it a coating over the top and creating internal strength. This at first seemed quite simple however the space under the bonnet between the tank was quite tight. I went to my Glass Fibre polymer supplier and tried to purchase some foam which I felt would work. This however seemed not readily available. Some further investigation took me to B&Q were I managed to buy some cable conduit that was made from PVC. I new this was resistant to the Fibre Glass and started to bond the channels onto the bonnet with Hairy Fibre filler. I cut the ends so that they overlapped the centre of the channel it was meeting against to make a cell structure. I used heavy objects i found around to press the plastic into the shape of the bonnet this meant it took on the profile snugly. This improved the rigidity of the bonnet immediately. I decided to continue this further round the outside of the bonnet making the whole bonnet structurally stronger. With the frame worked glued in I then cut small pieces of Glass 480 mesh to go over the frame and bonded it in position. The completed structure was then cleaned up filling any gaps with Fibre Fill IP48. This then allowed me time to repair the windscreen wiper hole as this had come to large over time. I achieved this by finding a rod the same size as the wind screen wiper shaft and fibre filling this in situ. This was removed just prior to the filler curing. leaving the correct size hole. The area was cleaned up with 600 Glass paper and the whole bonnet area was painted with Black metallic hammerite. Once I had the bonnet painted with hammerite I noticed that the Wind screen motor had a bolt hole to mount it to the bonnet that was not on the bonnet this I felt would also help the reinforcing of the holes as without this securing point the windscreen wiper was hanging from its spindles. I measured that I needed a 40mm block cemented and fibre glassed to the bonnet . I had previously used hidden fastenings on the wings and decided this would be the best method to bolt the motor securely to the bonnet. As you can see the block was made from a 40mm x 40mm x 150 mm of oak and this was cemented onto a cleaned area of the bonnet with hairy fibre filler P48 . Once this had dried the whole area was covered with fibre glass and a plate made from a stainless steel piece obtained at a boat chandlers was used to hold a captive nut . This was screed onto the new area and removed for painting. The whole fit was checked before removal for outside body prep.