Monday 25 March 2013

Painting the roof

Before I went for a week's holiday in sunny Hawke's Bay I blasted and painted the roof. I was pleased to find virtually no rust in the joint where it is welded to the gutter.


The gutter joint on the original cab has completely blown apart with rust and would be almost impossible to repair which was the main reason for getting the new cab. After blasting I gave the gutter a couple of thick coats of the urethane anti-rust primer before spraying with epoxy. I can report that resealing the black primer can with a layer of food wrap worked well; there was no sign of the paint setting and the lid came off easily.


I discovered that for a large area like this, my standard 1.4mm gravity gun really struggled to get enough paint on evenly. The epoxy primer is quite thick and whereas it was fine spraying a narrow pattern as soon as I opened the fan up hardly any paint came out so the end result although acceptable is a bit rough and uneven. The data sheet for the primer recommends airless spray, brush or roller above conventional spraying and this is why I guess. Next time I have some mixed up I will try thinning a little more and add another coat to see how it goes. I intend to spray the whole thing with a high build primer when I come to painting anyway; this layer is really just to seal the surface.

Monday 4 March 2013

Tin Bashing

After blasting the roof panel clean I was pleased to find that there was no significant rust but it was much more dented than I had thought. The large dents along the back I had already popped out and I am not too worried about them anyway because the body that will go back on has a Luton so the cab roof is pretty much hidden from that angle. However, the front edge of the roof will show and had numerous dents so after a few hours at the University of YouTube I went to our local second hand shop and bought some tools.


...and set to making a lot of noise. I also used a rubber mallet with a rounded head for knocking the bigger dents roughly into shape. The best combination for this job seemed to be the red hammer which as quite a crown to its faces and the mushroom shaped dolly. The technique is to run a sanding board with 40 grit emery over the surface to reveal the high spots and low spots, then work on them with hammer and dolly, then repeat.

The panel and its dents did not photograph well but here is the end result.


I'm sure a real panel beater would scoff at my efforts but the result is a great improvement from where I started so I'm pleased enough. I think that a thin skim of filler will give an acceptable result.