Oh.... and when flatting or rubbing out WATCH YOU EDGES! It'd dead easy to rub through the surface on an edge, or bit of panel swage line etc, that's why I advocate doing it by hand rather than machine. Paint wise 5ltre is plenty enough for the entire job, that's what I bought and I've still some left for (the inevitable) touch ups.

I know I'm hardly the first to say it but Mr Nail, you're a star.
Cheers for the advice, it's most welcome.
I've just come in from the garage having spent the evening rubbing down this primer. 600 grit followed by 800 grit. I also redid the bits I did with 1200 yesterday with 800.
Then I spilled a gobfull of thinners on the top of the rear seat box.
Hey-ho. Out with the primer again tomorrow night.

Terrific thread, Lenny! And superb work too

"They matched the colour up to a commercial vehicle colour and supplied me that." How concerned are you to get the 'right' Celeste Blue?

I ask because I have a C-B 2CV which will need the whole front respraying. For this, the colour match will have to be nigh-on perfect and I'm hoping that a local motors factors - who call themselves paint specialists - will be able to match an existing panel for me.

I bought an aerosol of - supposedly - EMB Celeste Blue from an on-line supplier and it couldn't have more different; the existing colour is a rather wonderful almost-lilac shade, whereas the paint in the aerosol was, well, sky-blue - very 'ordinary' as well as being completely different.

You are going to a lot of work; isn't it worth ensuring you are getting the 'colour' you really want?

We went through hundreds of paint chips to get a match. I took a bit of the old screen frame with me that had never seen sunlight and I reckon the colour is 99.9% correct. I couldn't decide if it may be the tiniest fraction lighter.

I had some Gris Nocturne mixed up for my Charleston and tried to blend in a bit on one of the wings and I might as well have used red. I suppose we're talking about matching 25 year old paint here. The old stuff is bound to have faded. That was why I wasn't bothered by this new paint possibly being the slightest bit lighter (which I'm still not sure it is!)

I'm sure it'll be fine, Lenny. I hadn't realised you'd gone through matching samples so carefully.

My concern was that the paint supplier just thought "Here's a light blue - that'll do him..."

Can't wait to see the next step

I'll send you a sample and the paint code if you want to see if it's a good match for yours?
It was about a third of the price of the 'proper' stuff and may possibly be a better match for your paint?

That's very kind, Lenny.

However, I'm going to need a 'perfect' match as the resprayed panels will have to match the existing, so I'm hoping the local factors will deliver. Failing that, I guess it'll have to be respray the whole bludy lot...

Well it's been a while but I promise I haven't been slacking.

I've been painting and it's been a bit of a challenge.

The main problem I had was orange peel. Lots of orange peel. The man from Del Monte would have been proud.

In Mr Nails wonderful instructions he says to flat back with 1200 grit ready for the next coat. I had to go down to 600 grit to make any impression on the craters I'd managed to spray.

I spent an evening playing with my spray gun and compressor and experimenting with more thinners etc and things started to improve. The final improvement was made by using some proper top quality high gloss thinners.

I'd now thoroughly recommend blowing the extra tenner on top quality thinners.

Anyway, some pics....









Still got many, many hours of flatting, swearing and polishing to go until I'm happy with it but it's turned out pretty well in the end, thankfully.

looks amazing lenny, really good work old boy

i cant remeber, did you use a rust prevenatative primer of some sort?

i would love a bleu celeste! i love the colour

I used zinc etch primer on any bare metal bits. I agree with your view on the colour. I'd forgotten what a nice colour it is when it's not all faded (and covered in moss.)
Very pleased with it.