MadaboutKitcars

It keeps making progress towards paint.

Not long now then - looking good! Are you staying blue - Stirling Moss car style?

Almost certainly staying blue although the painter did say today that up to the minute he orders the paint, I can have any colour I like….so who knows.

Lol that's dangerous! I was almost certainly gun metal then kept ping ponging and finally chose black....then those photos of the gun metal car popped up!

Colour choice made final now and will probably be followed by several other final decisions on colour.

Door to wing issue pretty much sorted now bar a little fettling to stop any rubbing. A version of the Nubodi split, cut and fibreglass method was used.

Cheers, Bob.

Hurnleft - Looking forward to seeing your car in colour Bob.

Good luck, Paul.

Thanks Paul,

A few things have conspired to put the paintwork back a bit but it should be getting paint within about 2 weeks.

Cheers, Bob.

Paint shop trip this morning. They've put loads of work in this week and it should be in primer today or tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be putting top coat photos up early next week.
Paint is finally set at the dark blue from the sample painted on the wing earlier. Paint ordered now so no more idea changes.









Bob.

It's getting close.

Whilst the doors were off the check straps were shortened a bit to ease the door gap issues.

Window frames are also off for me to fettle and repaint.

Body has been primered, stoppered, primered, and is getting it's was rubbing down. door shuts and the inside of the doors and boot lid are being prepared for paint.
Undercoat this weekend, top coats soon after.

Bob.

Excellent progress Bob! especially on the gaps issue, looks like a few more weeks and it will be back on the drive, all nice and shiny!

Looking good Bob , bet you can`t wait , Geoff .

Looking good but a huge amount of prep work before paint. It would be nice if the GRP was good enough to simply polish the gel coat . My old Brightwheel Viper and Westfields could be polished to a superb finish. Perhaps the new agent can go to the next level ?

It's that difficult balance between keeping the price attractive/ ease of finishing the car. As I like to put a few of my own ideas into any project, bonded in bonnet, altered rear lights and set in rear fog on this one, I think the extra work before paint suits my approach better.

Each to their own.

Bob.

It's a bit swings and roundabouts......... A gel-coated perfect body can be used by the customer without the effort/expense of painting, however most gelcoat finishes (especially dark colours) will maybe only last 6 years before they require painting because they will go streaky.

Red orange and yellow gelcoats don't last long the UV fades them fast and they go cloudy

I've never yet seen a gel coat finish that didn't shout 'kit car' from a mile away.

I've just watched an episode of Wheeler Dealers where they flipped a Gardner Douglas Cobra, and the gel coat had that flat sheen you find on Argos plastic picnic plates even after professional polishing.

They were hoping to get near £30k for it having spent £17.5k buying it and another £3.5k getting it through IVA (!!!), but eventually let it go for a measly £22k to the only potential buyer to show up, scraping barely a grand in profit, or about £400 quid each after tax for two months work... It would easily have made £25k or more with a half decent paint finish.

I've met quite a lot of people who've bought turn-key gel coat finished cars and they all rave about how you can't tell it isn't a high-quality paint job. I'm just too polite to tell them that's bo!!ocks.

I think the only gel coats that look good from the moulds are the Flake finished Beach Buggys.

They are of course a one piece mould so their are no flash lines to contend with.

Yep, I'd forgotten about those and you're absolutely right. I do love beach buggies and they always look great in flake.

Not sure if a metal flake 250GT with different coloured door jambs would work though.

I'm off to the body shop again tomorrow. This time it's not to check on progress with the 250, rather it's because a BMW drove straight into the side of my daily Maestro as I went round a roundabout today. We were the only 2 cars on the road so why he didn't see me I can only guess. The door is destroyed and the sill bent. I'll then have to tell the insurance company that I want to keep it as they're bound to want to right it off. Do I need the hassle?

Ooh, bad luck.

I had an MG Maestro back in the 80's. It was the 1600 with twin webers and my goodness it was terrible. Having said that I know how easy it is to get attached to a car when it's old and frail and you've had it a while though. They can really get under your skin.

You could ask the insurance company if you can buy back the salvage once they've paid out. I know that's what most of the classic policies allow.

Bummer- perhaps you could get the repairer to paint it a brighter colour...

Happened to me once in my Signal Red Lotus Seven S1, and I was stationary.

I was "T" boned whilst racing my single seater Autograss Class 10. Had some bad bruising but it proved my welding skills were good. Those were the days !

Oh , it was only 24" wide so it could have been worse !

That's annoying. I don't know what parts availability is like but aren't Maestro vans still made in China and possibly India?

PAINT

It came out of the spray booth this morning. It looks lovely, the blue seems to change from blue to greeny blue to even purplish blue in the shadows depending on the light although it only a straight colour with no metallics, pearls of other fancy stuff in it.

The doors and boot will be painted this afternoon and the car flatted and polished tomorrow. I've got to finish filling/sanding/painting the window frames now as I need them reassembled and ready for fitting on Saturday when the doors, skins and handles go on.

Fitting up starts early next week.