MadaboutKitcars

You sound like you are having fun and the result will be worth all the effort.
Do you still have your finger tips? I normally wear through mine

But I will be happy when im at the stage your at - its only when the colour starts to go on that you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Pics as promised.

Here's one with the bonnet shut, showing how i'm building up the shut-lines. This is obviously still a "work in progress"


And the view underneath showing how it's built down a bit as well to get the right height.
Note: i originally put a few self tappers along the underneath of the bonnet and screwed them in and out to get the right heights. I then built up the filler to those levels and it seems to have worked!


I did have one side "kicking out" a bit much but i've managed to bend it back in a bit and then make it up with filler. Again, this is still very much "in progress", so be kind!


Back of the car has just been sanded with 600grit to start smoothing it down, and although there were a few more spots to fill (sigh) they are slowly getting less and less.



and one to scare the kids courtesy of my wife, CSI Somerset

What a lot of work...

I can see why you would get someone else to do it! I am tempted to change how the bonnet attaches...

It's looking good and despite all the hard work, if you've got the necessary skills it's got to be more satisfying doing it all yourself rather than paying someone else to finish it for you.

I take my hat off to you, you're doing a cracking job of motivating me to get on with mine.

I am looking at this at the moment , hoping to incorporate the original Herald bonnet frame, may then be able to use the original inner wheel arches, will keep you info'd of progress on my build thread .

Sorry Dave back to your thread...

Very clinical, Dave.

If and when we meet up at the Sammio soiree, you will have ditched this outfit!
Is it a HVLP spraygun you're using? i can't see that much overspray, or is that because it's grey?

Pops, look forward to seeing alternative methods of hinging bonnet, mainly because i can't weld!

Well done Dave all your hard efforts will be worth it, your Pics are a great source of inspiration,can't wait to get my test out of the way,so that I can fit my bonnet and cut back the bulkhead. Trying to complete all that I can without upsetting VOSA.

Cheers John.

Progress update from this week: sanding, filling, sanding, filling, priming, sanding, filling, (you get the idea!)

I've two very small holes left to fill that i only spotted just as i was coming in and then i think that I'm as near to happy as i'm going to be and I'm ready to put a few final coats of primer on and then paint!

For anyone else who is going to paint theirs themselves, it's taken me two weeks of 1 and 2 hr's per day sanding /priming to get to a position where I'm "happy enough" to paint.

I may have some minor imperfections, i hope not, but seeing as this is the 1st time i've painted a whole car, as long as it's 90% good I'll be chuffed to bits!

Its the best way to get know the car!

you can always forgive your own mistakes...
And it is meant to be a car from the 50's! Look forward to seeing colour, is it red? Have been waiting for everyone to finish for the weekend and add something to forum.

Im sure it will look great Dave
No one is going to see any of the imperfections - you know every inch of the car in finite detail because you have built it. I assure you if you had paid for someone else to paint the car they would not have spent so much time prepping it.

I look forward to seeing the finished article in pics here and in real next year.

RIGHT!
THAT'S IT!
I've had enough filling and sanding to last me a life time.
Every time i think i've finished i find another bit, so i've made a decision that's it's now time to just start painting.

So a few coats of grey high build primer go on tonight and then as long as that turns out ok, it'll be sanded down with 600 grit tomorrow and the first of the red is going on.

oh. and there's been an 'interesting' development with the grill! more to come on that one....

Tell all on the grill update!

Agreed. Don't leave us hanging, what's the story with the grill?

Hi Dave I have just spent this weekend Filling and Sanding and looking like a Flour Grader, so I sympatise I haven't started to get my bonnet on yet so still a long way to go. I agree with Mister Toad it is more satisfying DIY.Keep up the Good work.
John

Hi all, still only on slow ahead but it is ahead, I've gone a different route with the bonnet "gaping" I'm taking the the bulkhead to the bonnet building up the step where the bonnet sits done allowing for a rubber (draft excluder) strip along the edge, I've just run out of filler, I'll get some piccy's on in skippy's thread soon.....Pat

thanks Dave i thought we had all dissapeared - its been quiet on the forum.

But the "grille secret" has woken us all up
Please put us out of our misery

I bought some rubber "D" strip from Car Builder Solutions to seal the bonnet, but i'm not too sure if i'll use it.

And on the theme of bonnets....

Here's the underneath of mine now that i've built the edge up


It's not "perfect" but as it's not going to be seen and i may coat it in something heat reflective in the future, i'm not too fussed.

And the eventual panel gap didn't turn out too bad in the end. It's not production car quality and actually looks a lot worse in this photo that it does in real life, but then again, i don't have a multimillion pound panel stamping robot, so it'll do.


And all primed and drying ready to be rubbed down with 600 grit tomorrow and then on goes the Red!

wow shes looking great
Mine has a long way to go before i can show it like this
and the nights are drawing in so im back to every other sunday

grr but she will be ready for next summer

And while i remember, the grill.....

I got the grill from Gary (cheers matey!) and it's a big substantial lump and quite a bit heavier than i was expecting, so i am already toying with the idea of using something else, possibly interwoven mesh.

But seeing as i've got it and it's a lovely bit of fabrication, it seemed a shame not to give it a go.

So after dremmelling out some channels in the bonding paste around the bonnet hoop i finally managed to jiggle it into place, but the front end of the bonnet is ever so slightly curved and the grill (the way i've got it trimmed at the moment) isn't.

So i brought it into the house to give it a once over and a ponder and i reckon that i can make it fit with a few slight grindings here and there.

But while i was pondering.....


So this may force my hand on if i use it or not. It depends on the reaction by No.1 son to me taking it back into the garage tomorrow

Dave, with the light primer, dark space and poor lighting, it makes it look like a chasm. But even a perfectionist like me can see that once that is painted it will look better than production. The main thing is it looks straight and even. I reckon I'd have said "good enough" a long time before I got that close. Well done mate, I only hope mine will be half as good as yours.

I managed to evict the little lego people and sneak the grill out of the house while No.1 son was in bed and i've now modified it to fit by grinding along the top and bottom edges.

I've also painted the car red!
Two coats of red.
Rub down with 600 grit
Coat of red
Rub down with 1200 grit
Coat of paint
(got fed up)

I've corrected a few cracks and drips and although the one on the dash still looks obvious and dreadful i've decided that i'm going to cover the dash with brushed alloy so i can live with it for a while.

I've tried flatting the bonnet with 2000 grit on one side and 1200 grit on the other to see what sort of differences they give and i must say that it's negligible.

I've also tried t-cutting a bit on the front of the bonnet to see what it'll look like and while the results are good, I'm shattered! So i've decided that i need a trip to halfrauds in the morning to buy a polisher and some more aggressive cutting paste.

But in the meantime here's where i now am.
It's an Alfa Romeo red one!


The bit that i t-cutted looking all very shiny so i imagine that it'll look even better when polished


Just the rest of the car to go......

Nee Noo Nee Noo Nee Noo

Dave Mk 2 Vitesse-twin polished Exhaust-Brushed ally Dash It's getting Stranger as the builds go on. Luckily I'm spraying mine fluorescent pink so at least we will be able to tell them apart.
Nice spray job by the way.

Looking good Dave.
I reckon you'll need a holiday when it's all done. County Durham is a nice place for a break. Just pop in to see me when you're here, and maybe just throw a few coats of paint on mine I'll even give you cups of tea and maybe a sandwich
I'm researching the old rustoleum applied with a roller, gonna try it on the heralds boot lid I kept back from the scrap man just to get a feel for it and check quality before I attempt the sammio. They even do 3 or 4 colours I really like.

hummmmm free tea

I grew up just down the road from a large bus depot and i always remember the local oldies talking about the fact that they could get a finish with a brush and roller "first time" that you couldn't tell apart from a sprayed finish that had been flatted etc.

i don't know how much waffle that was, but the busses did look good.

The buses in my neck of the woods tend to look like the back end of a bus.