My New 68 Fastback

[supersuk]

I just wanted to confirm, but the front hood trim piece is made of anodized aluminum with a steel piece insert? Mine is still nice, but there are a lot of light scratches. I want to strip the anodizing, polish it up really good and use the KBS diamond clear to protect it afterward. Is it possible to remove the steel insert without damaging the trim? I need to repaint mine since there's slight surface rust.

Also, how is the hood emblem held in place? I know when I disassembled mine, it was held in by clear silicone.
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

I guess no one took apart the front trim before? Well, I put that project aside and decided to start the blocking work on the main body of the car. I have to say that this portion of the work took a lot of work and it really sucks. My arms are sore, fingers are tired, and i'm just plain worn out. At least I was able to get everything straight and dent free. I still have yet to work on the indentations on the rear apron, but they are slowly coming along. It literally takes me about 10-15 minutes to sand each of the indentations. Once thats done, i'll move onto 320 grit and finally finish off with 400 grit. Hopefully I'll get to spray the body sometime next week.

I totally forgot to take pictures of the frunk and trunk lids after I painted them. You can see the trunk lid and a very small portion of the frunk in the first pic. I'm going to reclear them since I ran out of clear after putting on two coats. At least I was able to wet sand them nicely without burning through. I really love spraying the ppg 2021 clear. One thing I learned is that you really have to over reduce it a little to make it flow better. Next update will show the main body, frunk, and trunk lids painted.

One question for the knowledgeable painters out there. If I was able to wetsand the lids flat with only two coats of clear, should I be worried about the clear coat layer being too thin and spray another coat or should I just polish it up and call it a day?
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[Bobnotch]

One question for the knowledgeable painters out there. If I was able to wetsand the lids flat with only two coats of clear, should I be worried about the clear coat layer being too thin and spray another coat or should I just polish it up and call it a day?

It really depends on how much sanding you've done on the clear you've laid down. Depending on how fine a grit you've already used, you might want to add some more clear to it, unless you've already buffed it. Ususally you'll want to throw some clear down (a couple of coats), hit that with some 400, and toss another couple of coats of clear on that, which you wet sand out with 1500 to 2000 grit before buffing that finish. The idea of doing that, is to get any of the crap and overspray and any orange peel you have in the first coats of clear.
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Bob 65 Notch S with Sunroof
71 Notch ...aka Krunchy; build pics here;
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=249390 -been busy working
64 T-34 Ghia...aka Wolfie, under construction... http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=412120

[68vwfasty]

The front trim can be separated. It is a little tricky. Been awhile but I believe you need to bend some tabs to release the inner from the outer. Just take your time and you will figure out where it is held together.
I think ISP will chrome it for you if you wanted to.

[ataraxia]

[supersuk]

Thanks for the reply guys! I really appreciate the help with my build. This has been a good learning process.

As for the clear coat, I sanded down with 1000 grit and i'm pretty sure its fairly thin. Looks like i'll lightly resand with a little heavier grit like 800 before laying down another two coats of clear.

I think i know which tabs you were talking about. Thanks for the tip! Its a good thing mine is dent free, but just a little scratched up. I wanna separate it to paint the black steel piece and polish up the fine scratches.

For the hood emblem, I got those exact same clips. I think I have a problem though. With all the high build that was used, I must've made the holes smaller because I can't even install those things... I think i'm going to have to drill it out slightly and redo the basecoat in that area and reclear the entire hood. Its a good thing I was going to reclear the hood anyways! good chance to try out my new airbrush on that small part.
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Well this weekend wasn't as productive as I hoped it would be, but nonetheless I was able to get a fair amount of work done. I finished wetsanding the frunk and trunk with 800 grit and is now ready to be cleared again.

I also drilled the holes for the emblem in the frunk larger to allow the little mounting bits to fit into the hole.

Then I did more painting. This time was the inside portion of the trunk and frunk where the latches mount. The paint came out pretty good with minimal amount of nibs and orange peel. I'm slowly starting to get hang of spraying the PPG DCU2021 with my Sharpe Finex 3000 and 3m Accuspray with the 1.4 tip. I'm actually leaning more toward the 3m Accuspray gun since it seems to spray better for the clear. I like the Sharpe Finex 3000 for spraying base.

I guess progress is progress. Hopefully I'll be able to paint the rest of the main body this upcoming weekend. I'm going to build a booth in my garage for that one.
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Bit of a setback last night. While compounding with a mini 3" wool pad and the meguires 105 compound, I burned through the clear at one end of the front panel. So now i'm starting to sand the entire panel again with 800 grit so that i can reapply some base on the affected area and redo the clear on the entire panel.

You can see the small sanded area that I started. Forgot to take a picture of the burn through.

At least the rear panel came out nice after cutting/buffing.

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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Started to build my makeshift paint booth in the garage. Normally I would drape plastic from the ceiling to floor, but if I did it that way I wouldn't be able to open the garage door. I really wish I had one of those steel roll up doors! I bought 35 8-foot 1x2 furring strips from lowes ($1.18 ea), two boxes of #8-3/4" metal lath to wood screws ($5.74 ea), 3 10'x25' 3.5mil sheets of plastic ($30), and whatever 1/4" plywood I had left from building my cabinets (Free).

Building the booth was fairly easy and so far it took me about 3 hours to build majority of the frame. I used the 1/4" ply cut into 6" x 1.25" strips to join the 8-foot lengths to make longer pieces and gusset the joints. For the gussets, I cut the 1/4" ply into 6" squares and then cut it at a 45 degree angle down the middle. I still have yet to put on the spine on the ceiling to give the plastic some support from ballooning out. I plan to use whatever left over 1/4" ply to secure the plastic to the frame.

I honestly don't know why people use 2x4 to build their frames. Its just overkill. the 1x2 frame is plenty strong as long as you gusset properly. The only issue that I had was with splitting of the furring strips at a couple ends, but it isn't giving me an issue. I think I lucked out on the furring strips because this is the best quality i've seen on the island for a long long time! They were all fairly straight and cut well. I was a little worried about screwing into the thin 3/4" side of the furring strips, but it turned out to be ok. No splitting!

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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Forgot to ask a question => Is the Volkswagen emblem on the rear trunk a fastback only part? I purchased a new one and it had three prongs where it would be pushed into the trunk, but my trunk has 4 prongs...Also, does it use the same plastic bits that is used on the front emblem to secure it to the trunk?
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Bobnotch - When you use the dp epoxy for sealer, how long do you let it sit before spraying the base coat? So far I've been waiting about 1.5 hours after spraying 1 coat. Someone told me I should just let it flash 10 minutes before spraying my base coat, which is contradictory to what is stated in the P-sheets...Can you confirm if I'm doing it right?
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[Clatter]

MMmmmmm... Shiny!


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Bus Motor Build

What’s That Noise?!?

[Bobnotch]

[supersuk]

Thanks for the confirmation. I use the 401 since I have all the time in the world to wait the 30 min induction time. The P-sheet I have says to wait an hour if you use 1 coat before top coating and 1.5 hours if you spray 2 coats. I think I have to wait longer than an hour to wetsand some nibs out because of the 401 and the fact that its still a little soft and rubbery feeling.

I use two guns too. I have a Sharpe Finex 3000 that I like using for the base and an 3m Accuspray gun for the clear. I have a Harbor Freight gun that I was using to spray the epoxy, but I find that it orange peels a lot more than my 3m Accuspray gun. Since I can change the entire head on the gun in 5 seconds, I don't have a problem with contamination between products. You should really look into the 3m gun. Only problem is that you're forced to use their PPS cup system and replacement heads. The heads come in many diff tip sizes though.

I'm still fine tuning the blocking here and there on the car, but I will be spraying next weekend. I'm going to finish the booth on Thurs night and be ready to spray on Sat morning. Gonna blow out the car really good outside on Friday and mask it up really good. Hopefully it all goes well!
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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Been working on the paint booth slowly while working on the car. I'm basically done with the frame and air inlet part. Once i'm ready to paint, I'll put up the plastic wrap and outlet filters. I have this fairly small squirrel cage fan that I attached to the main frame and built an air distribution system using special material I receive from an exclusive club membership called Amazon Prime.

I also resprayed the front portion of the car. While mixing the clear I poured in a too much reducer (4:1:2.5 from what I normally poured 4:1:1.5. I just said F&$# it and decided to spray anyways cause I didn't want to waste it. All I did was give it a little more flash time. It came out really good and leveled off pretty well. I was able to wetsand very little to get it smooth. I also reattached my vin plate. Yay

Also had a major setback again. My compressor is starting to leak a little more oil now. So, I decided to sell off the compressor to purchase a new one. This also gave me some momentum to make a coil system to help cool down the air to draw out more moisture since that has been my problem since day one. The red compressor in the pics is my old one and has been sold.

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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[supersuk]

Finally got my new compressor from Quincy last friday. It took approximately 2.5 months after ordering it online to arrive at my place in Hawaii. I also took the oppurtunity to upgrade my filtration system with SMC components. After testing the setup, i'm happy to say that I have no contaminants in my air stream. Now I can finally setup for painting and lay down some paint on my fasty.

Quincy 60 gallon 175psi 2 stage compressor

3 stage SMC air filtration system with water and oil mist removal

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68 Fastback Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5396323#5396323

[joey1320]

Great job on the compressor and booth setup. Nice fasty.
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**1971 Super Project
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[MonT3]

Like that compressor set up and that black paint on the inner front is sweet! Look forward to seeing this fasty in come Black! Keep at it Super!!
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MonT3
67 Squareback
64 Squareback
63 Squareback
Engine rebuild
Trailer rebuild

[Bobnotch]

[Clatter]

Alright!!

Let's see some paint!
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Bus Motor Build

What’s That Noise?!?