Mostly have the bonnet finished, although it has taken a lot of elbow grease to get it nice and smooth.
I started with 600 wet & dry on the large block and after around an hour of rubbing I still wasn't happy with the finish as I had areas of orange peel, I guess this is because of using the larger spray gun laying down more paint. I never had this problem with the smaller gun but no problem just a change of tactics required.
I kept to the finer grade of 500 but used the DA sander with plenty of water which worked great on the paint but myself, the garage floor and the walls got covers in a wet spray of powdered paint, out with the pressure washer again.
The gloss finish is from the water used to wash off all of the residue and the reflection shows the smoothness of the primer. Even after using the DA sander I had minimal rub through, you can just see a little on the front and the air scoop edges are a little rubbed through, but that's the top finished.
The inside of the bonnet needed finishing and it was something that I could do myself instead of the paint shop, I must admit if I had not been going for a special candy finish I would have got more practice in and attempted to spray the car myself. No doubt I would have made a compete mess so best to lay out the money and have a pro do it.
The inside of the bonnet was rubbed down yesterday and all that was needed was a clean with the paint prep and tack ragged ready for the finish.
I was going to use VHT paint, not so much because of any high temps involved but to copy the original matt finish, on checking the tin I realised that I had no where near eneogh to spray the whole bonnet. The only other paint with any temp resistance was the tin of engine enamel I had bought for the cylinder heads unfortunatly this was a gloss finish but what the hell it may look even better.
I set everything up, mixed the paint with thinners and started spraying, I had never sprayed thinned gloss before and soon realised that I was starting to get runs, I should of lain the bonnet down and sprayed flat and very quickly that is what I did.
I raised the wide edge of the bonnet up on blocks of wood to allow the runs to fall back and carried on spraying; guess I still have a lot to learn. Slowly the runs receded and it looks pretty good if a little bright.
I have it stood up now and gave it a good look at and apart from a few small runs it looks pretty good, I guess the glossiness will lose a bit of its shine once it dries properly.
The bubble wrap I ordered has arrived so all of my hard work will get wrapped and protected and put away somewhere safe.
see ya Paul
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