Metal and Weather Get In The Way of Painting Progress

For a while now I’ve been talking about my struggles with paint color and how I believed that shooting a door or other body panel in each of the top candidates would make it apparent which color I should go with. I wanted to have done it sooner rather than, what it’s turning into, later. What’s been hampering my progress? Well, it IS winter and I don’t have a heated paint booth. Even if I did, though, I’m still struggling to carve out enough time to properly prep both doors for primer. I’m also working on the front fenders hammering out dings and patching a rusty area. All these efforts are documented in my YouTube videos which now number 21 episodes. The latest ones are: 19-Sanding Bondo, 20-Fenders, Doors, and Gauges, and 21-More Sanding Plus Making a Patch.

With my progress drawn out, I’ve had the opportunity to fall in love with another color. Recently, I read a Facebook post from Rusted Iron Customs showing their beautiful 1963 Tempest convertible. The paint job was flat black over House of Kolor’s Tangerine Kandy. I asked their painter, Matt, what color primer this was shot over and he replied PPG K36 (gray). I’ve done some more research on the paint, and it’s recommended that the transparent paint be shot over a silver or gold basecoat. From the photos, though, it sure looks gorgeous over the gray. I’m toying with the idea of getting a pint of the paint off eBay for $30. I’d also need a can of reducer ($25) and one of catalyst ($50). That’s $105 I could easily spend elsewhere, so this color may be off the table just due to the cost of painting a sample panel.

I’ll be getting some time in the garage tomorrow evening, so I plan on finishing the patch job on passenger fender by cutting out the bad metal to match the patch I’ve made, welding it into place, and grinding back the weld flush. The five day forecast has daytime temps in the high-forties and low-fifties this weekend, so I might strip the outside surfaces of the fenders, finish sanding the doors, and shoot all four pieces with epoxy primer. When motivated, I can work in an un-heated, well-ventilated garage in that kind of weather.