Super Dually Part 6: A New Coat of Paint!

Today. Project super duly gets a new paint job. We've got some of our auto body thrash friends back in the booth to help get this behemoth looking even better than it did when it was brand new. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey guys, welcome to trucks. Well, project super duly, our 79 Ford body sitting on a 97 Dodge chassis is taking up just about every square foot of our brand new prep station

and it's just about ready to spray some color on.

But this project didn't start out looking this clean if you remember, it was quite the thrash to get this once rusted out hulk of sheet metal looking like it does. Now,

this old Ford had been sitting in the weeds for at least the last 15 years

while it was all there.

Well, it was definitely rough

and that required lots of patch panels to replace the rust with solid sheet metal,

but we had plenty of qualified help in the shop and these guys knocked it out in a big way.

They helped us achieve our goal of having the truck buried in a fat coat of high build primer and ready for paint.

Now, I know you guys remember Randy Borcherding from Paint House from the Autobody Thrash Show. Well, he was kind enough to fly all the way out here from Houston, Texas to give us a hand prepping this thing. And quite frankly, it's nice to have the help because this thing is the size of a small house

now, obviously, so work has happened since the last time you saw Super.

It was in Black Primer when we finished it up with the thrash and now it's in gray primer. What I did was block it with 100 grit, followed by 180 to level out the surface one final time. Then we sprayed some of summit racings, two K gray Urethane primer

surfer to get it ready for a cool bed of paint.

But I use a different system and a different set of sanding blocks. So what I usually use to prep for paint, this is what we reached for. These are soft Sanders from the Style line corporation that we picked up at our local Macco tool distributor.

Yes, they're soft and flexible but interestingly enough, they've got different shapes molded into the Sanders to be able to contour and to block effectively the different shapes and coves. All these different vehicles, which is perfect for our duly because there's all the different shapes and the coves and the hard lines. Now, we also use the style line sandpaper and although these are flexible and we'll contour. The benefit is using both of these in a system.

Now, here's how the soft Sanders work. Normally. What you do is take your sandpaper and apply it to the block, stick it down

and you got a sandy board.

But when you go to contour, you see these folds,

what those folds do

is they raise edges and of course, this is exaggerated but those edges, well, they're gonna dig into your primer or your paint. Not good. Here's the magic of the soft Sanders.

You take their paper,

you lay it down on the contour. First,

you take the soft sander,

contour it

to the panel

and you've got a convex or concave surface that matches the panel that you're blocking with no crinkles, no wrinkles and nothing that is going to dig into your paint. And what this does is give you a very effective tool that's custom made to exactly mirror image, the panel that you're blocking, it saves time and it's going to have a better outcome. We'll see how it works on the whole truck.

Now, Randy's no stranger to pushing a sanding block and we both agree that blocking out a vehicle is one of the main components in getting a nice paint job.

We're wet blocking with 320 grit super flex paper.

Now, coming down the road at you, this truck is gonna look like a big square box, but trust me, there's not a flat panel on it far from it.

But you can see how these soft Sanders fit into the contours and they'll literally keep you from digging ruts into the paint that'll show through in your top coats.

This little guy fits in this curve right here

and the bottom line,

it's all about the tools and having the right tool for the job. These will get it done

using a guide coat. Well, it's obvious what it does. It shows you where the low spots and high spots are

and having lightweight sanding boards that are a bunch of different shapes is a huge benefit, especially on this truck or any custom project. That's not just flat panels for wet blocking with sticky back paper. It just hasn't been possible until I found this stuff.

Now with conventional sandpaper, the grid lets go when it gets wet and the adhesive doesn't work at all. It destroys the sandpaper, but ST line sandpaper, obviously, we're using it wet and the adhesive stays active. That's pretty cool.

And when you're pushing a sanding block against the panel, it really helps to have that panel still attached to the vehicle. It just gives you something to work against.

And even though we spent our time wet, blocking the sides, we decided to hit the roof with some D A Sanders just to knock it down because the truth is the only people that are gonna see that roof are the weather helicopters

and with the cab and dog house blocked out and ready for paint. Well, we got to blow it apart again because remember this is a complete color change and we have to paint the insides and before they can be painted, well, we gotta be prepped like everything else

and now we have more sanding.

Now, one of my favorite sayings is the harder it is to sand, the more important it is to sand it. So the backsides and all the cracks and crevices get prepped as well.

And these red Norton scuffing pads do a great job of conforming to all the tight contours and it's a coarse enough grid where they'll give the sealer plenty of tooth to grab onto.

Now with the help of Randy, our soft Sanders and style line Super Flex sandpaper, we're making great progress on super duly. So let's talk about paint. We've shown you our spray out panel with the two colors that we've chosen for Super Duty's two tone using summit racing's brand new two stage base code, clear coat paint system. Now, this is a professional grade system at a budget price. They've got different clear coats, different speeds of hardeners, different reducer, select

base coats, epoxy primers, primer surfaces and even the chemicals that you need to clean it up. So it's a complete system. But more importantly, you get these downloadable P sheets that are available on some of its websites for free. They go over everything mix ratios, application guides dry times, all the information that you really need to use these chemicals properly. So it's not just about the chemicals, it's about knowing the rules and that just makes it a lot easier

up next. We're finally spraying paint and Randy's creating an awesome ghost logo and later painting the cab and reassembling. Super duly. Stay tuned.

Hey guys, welcome back to trucks. Well, it's safe to say that super duly is a big truck. So a paint job is a monumental undertaking but doesn't mean you can skimp on the details like this pinhole. That's right in the line of sight at the top of the bedside.

And no matter how much time it takes, you have to commit to taking care of the details at this stage and that's what makes the difference between a splash job and a really good paint job

and it's fixed the the paint job itself. The time in the booth

pulling the trigger on a gun is

probably not even measurable in, in percentages

if you're really smoothing out a vehicle, especially a large one like this.

We've got a lot of time in the panels,

multiple primings and blockings and uh

it just, it takes so many hours, hundreds, even thousands in the case of show cars

before you might paint for three or four hours.

And with everybody signing off on our progress, we're ready to move on to the next step, which is a Sealer coat.

We're using the Summit brand Epoxy Sealer.

Now, Epoxy is literally a spray glue, it sticks to everything and everything sticks to it.

So with a proper mix ratio, not only does it guarantee that our ground coats, our paint coats are going to stick to the surface, but also that we have a uniform color in which to spray our paint on, which is really the primary function of a sealer coat in the first place.

Now, it takes about 30 minutes before you can spray the base coat on to the sealer, which is just about the amount of time it's gonna take you to clean your equipment out and mix up your base colors. We're starting with the gun metal metallic out of the Summit racing color palette.

Now, once you've downloaded your P sheets, they're gonna tell you the cat

the base coat. This is a couple of things. It makes the base lay out a little bit smoother and it gives it a chance to chemically cross link with the ground coat and for the clear coat to lock into it, which is pretty important and makes it all one continuous coat instead of a bunch of layers stacked up.

Now, there's a specific technique that we're using that we all agreed on for this paint job since it's completely disassembled and that is following the same recipe for every part, regardless of where it is or when you shoot it

and it starts with using the gun metal gray on every bit of the panel, even though it's going to be two toned. What this does? It sets up a repeatable pattern that we can transpose onto the rest of the panels and that will guarantee a color match combined with the right technique.

Now, we didn't want to let Randy's custom painting talent go to waste while we had him locked in here. So we set him to the task of creating a cool ghost effect with the super duly logo in the top of the bedside

and he came up with something really simple but very cool.

A candy with some pearl added in it sprayed over our blue

gives it a ghosty effect where under some conditions you won't see it and under other conditions, it will just jump out and be obvious. It's got two effects, one where it disappears and one where it appears

now with Randy bearing his graphic and clear. Another member of the Autobody Thrash team showed up to give us a hand.

Brian Finch came ready to get to work and wasn't shy about sharing his point of view.

Now, Brian's got a bit of an opinion here. This is the inside of the door that I messed up. That's the one that he messed up. So what, what's your point?

You get what you pay for?

We're not paying you.

Now with all hands on deck, we set up a real production environment so we could get this job done.

And if you use a recipe or preset guidelines, you can get away with using different painters and get the same results, which is pretty important in this case because we're trying out a brand new paint system.

Now, summit calls this a budget paint system, but you'd never know by spring it and it was cool to get some feedback from these guys.

The paint covers really well. The first time it, it lays down nice. It's very forgiving, you know, for, for somebody who, who may not be an expert in, in gun set up or proper technique, the paint just, just goes on and does what it's supposed to, especially the clear coat,

uh, the clear coat, you know, laid down nice. Um, it had, it had a good flow out

but you could, you could hammer it down and it wouldn't run right. So,

uh, you know, very, very impressed for, for what it is. I'd use it

now. Painting super duly the way we're doing saves you a lot of time on masking and certain preparation. But the price you pay while it's multiple painting sessions and having a place to store the parts.

Even with all of that, it's still easier than trying to wedge that entire truck into the booth.

We just physically couldn't fit that truck in the booth at the same time.

Plus, if I had to shoot that truck all at one time my arm would get tired and

I'd just go home

up next, putting Humpty Dooley back together again. Stick around,

swing open.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. But we're knee deep in the paint job for projects. Super duly. Some parts are shot, some parts are primed, some parts are masked, but there's still a ton of work to do for all three of us.

Now, obviously, any paint job constitutes a whole lot of work and a substantial learning curve.

Now, if you're trying to weigh the difference between farming this out and paying somebody to do it or doing it yourself, think about it like this.

We got three guys working, it's about 60 hours worth of work

and that doesn't even consider the body work that was done prior to what you're seeing. Now, that's just the spring of the paint

that doesn't consider also disassembly and reassembly after the wet work is done.

So, again, just for the paint job, you're gonna have about $4000 labor at any body shop across America plus about $1500 charges in materials.

So if you want to weigh that against a little bit of a learning curve and figuring out how to do this yourself. Well, you've got options because you can either save up some money and pay somebody to do your paint job or invest a little bit of money and a lot more

time do it yourself or just look for a project that's already got a clean paint job on it.

Now, with all the high tech prep stations and paint booths and HV LP, this and modern efficient that

the process of painting itself hasn't changed much since they moved away from brushes to spraying paint in the first place. And that was back in the twenties.

Now, a spray gun is essentially identical to a carburetor to

where a liquid is mixed with air, breaking it up into small particles or atomizing it so it can be applied smoothly and evenly onto a surface.

Now, over the years, spray gun technology has become very sophisticated

even so when you're like, Randy, if you've been spraying paint for more than 20 years, sometimes tried and tested, reliable technology is kind of what you stick with. Such is the case with his acu spray

Syphon feet,

call it old faithful. It sprays everything

perfectly

the first time I don't have to go back and fix striping problems or uneven metallics. It works every time and I don't see a reason to change that. Yeah, it's a little harder to clean. It's a little more awkward at times, but the finished product more than makes up for that.

And if you've seen some of the award winning flawless work that Randy kicks out over and over again, well, it's kind of hard to argue with that kind of success.

How does it look

you so far? Get up here

now with the over spray, cleared out the paint dry and everything laid down smooth as glass. It's time to get to the fun part reassembly.

Now, this is the last time that we're ever gonna put the doors back on the cab. So, of course, we're spending a little bit of time making sure we don't bruise the paint, but also that we get nice panel gas and a good alignment. Figure it out. Now,

the dog house. Well, that's a different story because not only have the aprons in the back of the firewall,

not been painted. We've still got to do things like figure out our steering linkage, which steering column we're gonna use, what kind of brake booster we're gonna use. So this is purely a mock up. But I gotta tell you after all the hard work and all the time that it's taken to get here, we can't wait to get this thing assembled.

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Hey guys, welcome back to the shop.

Now, the last time we showed you this shot, we were revealing recent body work and fresh primer.

But check this out.

Kevin Randy and Brian put in another long weeks worth of work to give project super duly this super slick blue and gray two tone, then buried it in clear

and we can't thank those guys enough for kicking in and working their butts off. Heck Randy even laid in the super duly logo in the upper bedside for a nice cool custom touch.

Now, we tried two different things here. The first one was a new unconventional sanding block system that really saved us a lot of time in prepping super duly. The second was the so called budget line of paint from Summit racing and the base colors. Well, they li out great. The colors are even and consistent. And even though this truck was painted by three different shooters completely disassembled. Well, everything matches when you put it all back together and the clear coat. Well, it speaks for itself. The gloss and depth is beautiful. So in my mind, two A pluses for both of those systems and what that does is get super duly ready for a whole new set of projects.

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Hey guys, thanks for watching trucks. Check us out on the website at power block tv.com.

We'll see you next week.