MadaboutKitcars

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and so there is damage around the mouth - largely covered by the grille when fitted - it's snagged the paint going in and out which is still very soft and so peels easily.

Unfortunately the clear coat is also suffering from fish eyes all over (but mainly at the rear) - that's going back for correction next week.

Car stands me in a lot of money - I'll need to see high teens to sell in all honesty. It is stunning and only gets more so with every new mod. I'm thinking of going to Heyward and Scott for the exhaust.

Could the grill surround be wrapped in an alloy looking finish. I'm sure it wouldn't be easy but so long as any joins were under the top they shouldn't be visible.
As I have mentioned before, I have somebody that can vacuum plate GRP in a chrome finish, not sure if they would be able to do a part as large as a grill opening. When I get mine after the show I will take it to them and see if it can be done.

Sorry to hear about the paint problem, it looked so good in the pictures.
Will be very interested to see if you manage to solve your filler problem, if you don't I think I will mount mine on top of the wing, this should allow for the bend but won't look so good.

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Thats worth noting, I'll go over all the panels with a paint stripper gun (carefully) to try and get any air pockets out before preparing the panels.

Nubodi already do this. These only showed up after about 3/4 days out in the sunshine.

I must admit I have been very uptight about the issues and shortcomings - largely because of expectations being raised a too high. I'm a bit more relaxed now. At the end of the day they're kit cars made by a small family business with the all the benefits, 'quirks' and issues that go with it.

That they can be made to look this good is quite something in itself but it does require an immense amount of time and effort - anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves ("fettling" doesn't begin to cover it). Very easy to make a rough and ready one, very hard to make a convincing one...

There has been a steady stream of people coming through Bonville just cos they've heard about the car being there - word seems to have spread locally. None have them have guessed what's underneath. All of them thought it looked amazing. one guy came in saying I've heard You've got a Z3 that doesn't look like a Z3 - where is it then? to which Buster replied You've just walked passed it! He was dumbfounded.

Don't tell them its a "replica" , tell them its a "one off". They will be more impressed ! I haven't seen two Tributes that look the same , each is built by hand and won't be.
Rather than sell now , just take a break from it for a few weeks. When you return you will have got your enthusiasm back !

Quick heads up: they do great work at Bonville but it's not the place for a painted car. If you want any fabrication doing get it done before painting, not after.

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Maybe a problem with the paint. I sell GRP motorcycle fairings and mudguards and they are painted to match. Base coat and then a 2k clear lacquer is used. Being GRP they are not painted in an oven. Within 2 days they can be flattened down with fine wet and dry and machine polished with no problems. To be honest I do normally give them a week if possible.
I recently had a batch of base coat that just wouldn't dry properly, it dried but was soft, you could dig your fingernail into it quite easily. A phone call to the paint supplier and he sent a new batch, this was fine and was as hard as nails in a couple of days.
Obviously something wrong in the mix, apart from mixing the colours is there a hardening agent in the paint?
Maybe a bad batch of paint.

It is jet black base coat and 2k lacquer. Where bits of paint have pulled away on the edge of the nose lifted edges are very easy to peel away like orange skin - it's like it doesn't appear to be adhering.

Nasty, I had that happen a good few years ago. Car had a bare metal respray, the primer was stuck firmly to the car but the paint didn't stick very well to the primer. Got fobbed off by the painter and it was never resolved and was continually touching it up. About 10 years later I had a problem with the door latch and the only thing I had in the car was some duct tape to hold the door shut. On removing the duct tape it took most of the paint off the door as well. Primer was still intact under the removed paint.

A different story, we were on a boat and some youngsters were launching a bright red speedboat, looked lovely and obviously had been recently painted. They came back half an hour later in a grotty yellowing GRP boat trailing what looked to be a 10 foot red condom. you've guessed it, it was the paint. In this case the painter hadn't used and primer at all.

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Look on the bright side, you choose a colour thats easy to match!

Looking at your old bumper shock mounts, I'm intending to cap them with a heavy bit of steel with a large nut welded behind. Should work as a tow point with the bonnet open and will stop water ingress.

Thing is the car needs to be detailed for Stoneleigh - the GRP grille covers 99% of damage. I just need to decide what the hell to do post show - the alloy mouth is 99% there but will need cutting of the reliefs in the body mouth to make right. On the other hand I don't really want freshly detailed paint back in the workshop...

If the grill covers most of it don't worry. A fat black felt tip will cover any temporary paint damage for Stoneleigh, you can always out up a rope barrier to keep them back from the car to stop them getting to close.

Some bastards bound to point it out though (me:bolt

Lol - I think the thing is because it hasn't been in an oven it's gonna take a lot longer to harden.

Ultimately I knew it was risky to have a go so kind of my fault partly but the surface scratches round the rest if the body and Matt patches where people have rubbed up against it when it's been covered in dust are his fault.

And actually the air bubbles are entirely Chris fault due to grp lay up so he should really contribute to sorting that bit.

Smash, I don't tend to shy away from my customer's problems, so please give me a call on 07901 544241 to discuss yours.

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Happy to discuss, call me tomorrow.

Have you a pic of the bubbles smash?



This is the before shot

Smash – Sorry to hear you are having so many problems with blisters in your body shell.

I could be wrong (again), but I think it is rare for sunshine to find air pockets that the heat gun didn’t.

But I’m glad to hear you are keeping the faith, as your car is going to be very special in the end.

Good luck, Paul.

It's a shame your paint is causing problems, the black really suits the car.

As for the bubbles coming out of the GRP, that could be a warning to those who go with dark colours to make sure extra care is taken to find and dig out any voids in the body before paint prep.

I say that because I'm aware of one or two Sammio Spyder owners who suffered similar issues on their dark coloured cars, while my silver car hasn't had any problems at all. The Sammio bodies were very cheap to buy - about £800 as I recall - and the quality of the GRP matched the low price. That's not a criticism, they were the best value for money 'kits' I've ever come across in 35 years + as a kit car enthusiast, but the bodies needed far more work to get right than anything Chris and Dan have produced.

The laws of physics dictate that silver cars are cooler - both physically and stylistically as far as I'm concerned - as they reflect the energy from the sun instead of absorbing it like a dark coloured car does. White comes a close second to silver in the heat reflection stakes btw, but I'm not over keen on white cars myself. Sniff.

http://phys.org/news/2011-10-silver-white-cars-cooler.html

The american tv series 'Myth Busters' covered this in episode 38 and found a 10 degree difference in interior temperature between otherwise identical black and white cars left out in the California sunshine.

Good luck with the bumpers and grille, they're looking fantastic, and best of luck getting the paint fixed. I'd be negotiating with the sprayer to sort out the bubbles at the same time as they sort out the surface finish, foc unless they fancy a trip to the small claims court of course...

I tend to agree with the majority opinion on this one...






I have 30 years experience around fibreglass and have over the years with various ventures used different levels of laminator , budget dependent and product related usually ...my view on this is that all the laminators I have ever used and all the kit manufacturers I have spoken to and experienced products from , cannot guarantee that there won't be any air bubble issues .
I have built cars using some very expensive , gel finish , no paint needed parts and from some very reputable , higher end suppliers like Rodline , Chesil , GTD Developments , UVA etc over here and Gibbon , Chevrolet and a Manta Montage kit from the U.S.A. amongst other stuff ..they have all needed a lot of preparation prior to paint.

An experienced painter will know this .

The painter Richard uses is , in his words , an experienced guy he helped set up years ago ...I am sure he is well qualified and able to paint cars of this nature . In his defence , you are only as good as your hired help if you employ others , regardless of personal ability ..and I would not want to be involved in the paint industry nowadays , ever ....there are too many factors that can contribute to paint issues nowadays , product failure , contaminants in the air or airline , climate issues , time scales , customer expectations etc etc etc...

I admire anybody who does paint full time for customers ...

I would agree that black is a bastard colour to get right ...Its always a brave choice , but if bubbles have appeared in the body at this time of the year with the temperatures as they are at present , my view is they were missed in the prep. stage ...preppers or painters error ...

If the car is having other paint issues as I read earlier , then this is the perfect time to rectify it and , thankfully , caught early , will not be a problem later on and the expense of rectification is diluted by the other works being done .......how crap would it have been to come to light in a few months time after paint rectifications ?

Pointless