Prep and more paint!

I predict... More sanding... and much more paint in our future! hah! It's pretty amazing how much sanding and prep goes into the perfect paint job.. But one things for sure.. Dad and the guys at Horvath Hotrod know! And they have the sore hands to prove it!

Over the past month, the truck has been sanded down, primed, sanded down, bondo'd, primed, sanded, pounded on, bondo'd again, sanded, sent for first coat, and then sanded again before getting another coat!! And you know what.. its all worth it! The truck looks amazing.. And its not done yet!! :)

Here's Dad sanding the hood cowl vents on the truck.. each blade is hand sanded to remove metal sputter from the original manufacturing process.

Here's Dad sanding down the back side of the cab.. "Watch his magic sanding hands!" He sands so fast all you see is a blur!

Here is the radiator core support, primed and sanded.. Its hard to tell from the picture, but this is probabably in the best shape its been in 50 years!

Dad sanding down the door jam.. Its all about the detail! Joe and Dad joke about sanding.. You sand on a spot, you move on, then come back to the same spot and find something you missed that needs more sanding.. It just takes time!

Here's a close up on the cab.. as you can see, the firewall isn't being sanded because its already been lightly touched up and painted again before the cab was bolted back on the chassis.

The truck looks pretty cool with the flat red color (the sanded section) against the shiny red coat.

Truck taped off and ready to be repainted.

Dad wiping one of the front fenders down with Prep-sol.. They use this solvent to remove any remaining dust or debris from the panels before they're painted. Contamination can lead to small pock marks in the paint or what they refer to as fisheyes..

The calm before the storm.. All of the truck parts are in the paint booth ready to be painted!! Its magic time!

Eric painting one of the doors on the truck..

You're probably looking at the door thinking.. That looks sweet, but that doesn't look like the same color that the cab was painted with!! Well it is, but what you're seeing is only the base color.. Eric will later spray in the different metal flakes and then a clear coat to give it the color we saw on the cab earlier..

Here is the front hood being painted..

Once Eric has the first coat of paint on the entire hood, he'll spray rhino lining under the hood to make it stronger and should give the hood a clean appearance.

Hood looks great! Thats a lot of metal to paint!

Here is a great shot of the rear corner of the truck.. you can see the back and roof is now painted. It looks great!

The roof of the truck was in great shape to begin with and didn't require any metal work that I'm aware of.. The same could not be said regarding the gutters around the cab.. They were cleaned up and re-sealed early on in the project. They look brand new.. ok better than they looked when the truck was new from what I've heard.

There you have it! The first base coat is finished! I can't wait to see how they turn out after the metal flakes are applied and the clear coat goes on!