Bodywork & Renovation
1929 AUSTIN A7 - Bodywork preparation and paintwork
This Austin A7 was a pleasure to work on, and it came with a very interesting story.
The present owner bought the car more than 60 years ago, and not long after he purchased it the car was stripped down for renovation - which was never completed.
It remained in a state of disrepair over the decades and previous attempts to restore it had suffered some major setbacks - the car had been involved in two separate garage fires over the years and badly damaged on each occasion.
Fast-forward to 2014 and i was approached with a view to finally getting the car finished off for the owner to finally enjoy.
A lot of the aluminium bodywork had already been replaced with new panels, the remaining parts needed fully stripping back to a sound surface, and the whole lot required filling and shaping where necessary before being primed and painted in the original dark blue with black wheel arches as pictured.
JAGUAR XK8 - Accident Repair.
Following an unfortunate accident this Jaguar was economically repaired using second-hand parts including the wing, bumper, headlamp, and other associated parts and fittings.
A full respray finished the whole thing off and got the big cat gleaming again.
SKODA FABIA - Side Repair.
This side scrape had distorted a large area of the door skin. After careful filling and reshaping, the damaged areas were primed and basecoated - blending the colour into the adjacent panels, to produce a seemless repair.
SEAT IBIZA - Front end damage.
Following a bumper scrape, and roof tiles falling onto the bonnet during bad weather, this Ibiza needed damage repairing before being returned to the finance company.
LOTUS ELAN PLUS 2 - Bodywork and paintwork renovation.
The work to this 60's icon was spread over around 7 months and involved uncovering previous repairs, as well as numerous stress cracks and other bodywork issues, all to be expected of a 40 year old sports car.
It's not unusual for a job like this to take anything between 200-250+ hours to complete, but the results are clearly worth it.
The damaged areas of GRP were re-fibreglassed with resin and 300gsm CSM, as well as having a layer of SMC fibre filler, before being finished in very fine filler and primed in yellow tinted 2-pack materials.
The colour was specifically matched to be as close to the original as possible using modern tinters. In total there was over 20ltrs of paint materials used on this car including the various primers, 2-pack, basecoat and lacquer.
The Elan was brought in fully stripped down as a rolling shell which saved time and allowed me to concentrate on the necessary work before being returned to the customer to be built back up and refitted.
Although time consuming and full of surprises, as well as frustrating at times, the feeling of satisfaction seeing the Elan gleaming in deep glossy lacquer was definately worthwhile.
CZ PAINT RENOVATION.
As can be seen from the pictures this classic bike was in cosmetically poor condition, although the metalwork underneath was basically sound.
To fully remove all traces of corrosion the panels were sent out to a specialist to be fully shot blasted and powder coated. This was used as a strong undercoat for the rest of the repair process.
Powder coating the panels immediately after shotblasting also provided protection rather than leaving them in bare steel whilst being worked on.
Further processes involved filling and reshaping, etching and 2-pack priming, and final 2-pack paint in the two-tone colours shown.
MERCEDES SLK - Corrosion repairs and paintwork.
Although great cars, these R170 SLK's are known to suffer in certain areas from corrosion and this particular example needed attention to all four wheel arches as well the the drivers side inner wing as shown in the pictures.
A second-hand wing was obtained as the old one would have been uneconomical to repair.
After painting down both sides the car was back in great condition and ready to enjoy the summer.
AK COBRA - Full bodywork preparation and paintwork.
The owner of this excellent kit had spent several years lovingly building it in his garage. When the cobra arrived it was a fully rolling chassis with all the mechanicals finished and just the exterior bodywork and painting required to get it completed.
A great deal of time was spent profiling the fibreglass body and getting the panel tolerances as close as possible. Yellow 2-pack primer was also used to aid coverage of the exterior coats as well as avoid any unsightly stone chips over time.
The final colour scheme is Porsche Yellow with black stripes - carefully rubbed back to remove masking edges and fully lacquered over to create a smooth / seamless surface.
FORD KA - Bumper scuff repair.
This KA bumper damage is a good example of how a repair can be kept locallised to save time and cost instead of painting the entire bumper.