1973 Gremlin Project.... "The Demise of Sanity"

pacerman wrote: I recommend some of those 3M stripper wheels if you want to get to bare metal quick, and they don't scuff up the metal badly either.  In fact you might need to lightly hit the bare metal with 80 grit to give it some tooth.  But progress is progress.  Enjoy it.  Joe

Thanks Joe and Ian...!!!

I've got a couple around here somewhere and it'd be an awful lot easier if I could find them...!!! LOL!!!

I've been using 80 grit just to get the old primer off. It was terribly thick in some spots. Bet you I used at least 2 cases of primer when I painted this poor car.  Even my paint guy came by the other night and said it was coming along well and he was really surprised to find out that I was using 80 grit. (He did recommended using like 180 0r 220 when I do the fenders though) I've found a little surface rust where the gas tank goes, so that's on todays project list. I use a cupped wire brush on an angle grinder to get the most of the dirt and old under coating off, then hit it with a rag soaked in either paint thinner or acetone to help get the rest of the left overs off. Its a long process and there are times that I wished I had a blaster. But, do to the cost and not having a reputable place to take it here in my home town, I am kind of stuck doing things the "old fashioned" way.

I am fine with doing it the hard way. That way I know its done and done to the best of my ability.

I call them "smalls"...

All the little things that have to be done, and I have buckets of it...!!!

Everything is either matte black or flat black. Some things are just primer as those will be painted body color. When and if I get that far...

Actually found some paint that sticks to plastic and doesn't "fish eye".

Weather is supposed to be nice the next 3 days and I am hoping to get the dash sanded down and hopefully I can get that out of the way.

I'm jealous because you got to use a blaster... LOL...!!!

I've really thought about it, but there isn't anyone here in my home town that does that sort of thing. Guess that'd be a good gig here if there would be enough business.

The only sand blaster that we have here is down at the powder coating place. I wouldn't trust them to blast this particular car. I am afraid that I wouldn't have a straight panel left.

Thank you Bob and everyone else for the kind words...

I greatly appreciate them.

Started the other day on windshield trim. It was actually in pretty good shape. Didn't have any dings or dents, just looked like ick..

This is one piece that I started with. Water stained and a few small scratches in it.

After a good cleaning in the good old solvent tank and getting all the stuck on windshield gasket junk off of it, I wet sanded them all with 400. Then 600, then 1000 and finished wet sanding with 1500 grit sand paper. Then off to the buffing machine. My buffing machine isn't the best thing in the world, but it works. I actually got it for free at a estate sale. All it is, is an electric motor that is bolted to a board and then I C-clamp it to the end of one of my benches. It was actually used to polish rocks, so I didn't have to do any real modifications to it for my purposes.

I did have to purchase some buffing pads and a few sisal pads and some compound. I use 3 different compounds and 3 different buffing wheels. I don't think that it really spins fast enough, so it takes a little more time.

This is what the same piece looks like after sanding and just a sisal buff...

And here is the final product after about 7 hours of labor for all 5 pieces...  

Stainless steel is a very hard metal as we probably all know and it can be a real pain to polish. I do have some very-very tiny, fine scratches that I couldn't get out. I probably could if I had spent more time on them but they look good enough for me and that's all that matters...

Probably saved myself a good chunk of changed doing this myself. The last time I worked in a plating shop, the hourly rate was about 40 bucks an hour for polishing. That was back in the early 90's so I imagine that price has gone up quite a bit.

Now to go clean up the mess.