[Ron M]

Ok, here I go. This should be an interesting thread, or atleast stir up some opinons. My 49 Chevy is getting closer to paint. I am stripping old finish, just finished some major sectioning of the body, especially around the rear fenders and under the trunk lid. All new metal. The previous body work was done with a torch, nothing wrong with that, but the fella must have had a cutting tip on it for brazing IE, heat and excess repair. I cut out all of the bad areas and massive amounts of filler and installed new metal sections. The weld lines are around the lower rear half of the entire car. It came out fairly well. If you put a straight edge up to the weld seam and hold it vertically, there is about an eighth of an inch max, mostly less to almost no gap at the weld seam with one small area about 3/16" of gap. Just cannot get to that small spot. The rest of the body looks great.

Anyway, after stripping to metal I am planning on priming with variprime, sand filler areas to bare metal and then fill, and onto a PPG 2K sealer. I like the idea of black for the color or a dark color. How hard is it to get the body straight enough for black? Is it truly that monumental of a task? I have done some body work in the past, but the black centari and deltron I have painted have been on smaller items and straight metal such as bikes, dashes etc., so no filler expereince with black. I have just recently finshed building 2 composite boats where I had to shape and fill entire boat hull, and the color was a burgundy metallic. Looks good, but I used epoxy putties and fillers with micro balloons, DA and long board for sanding. No polyester filler work in those projects however.
I am thinking with those weld seams, that after I prime the car, I will need to fill seam area, and then probably fill or skim coat entire side of rear fenders. Then work it down with a board, and rework until flat. 2K high build it, block and block with guide coat. The Chevy fender is round in shape with a complex radius, but it also has a flat section on the outside of the fender. What does everyone recommend? Doable, or am I just nuts. How about the pros out there who repair black in body shops?. Any ideas, tricks or tips much appreciated. One last thought if important. I have not decided on a paint sytem 100%, so if there are ideas on systems that black sprays better in, please throw them out. I sure like the price of PPG MTK single stage urethane.

Correction to be made. I meant a 2k high build primer.

[mitmaks]

Id grind all over welds till fresh metal shows, then bondo it and do it all perfect, sand it with 40 then 80 grit, get some glazing putty and put over bondo spot and little over to feather edge onto metal and then sand with 120 grit and then prime with PPG k36 filler primer, and sand with 320 grit and put another 2, 3 coats and sand with 400 until its totally perfect and i mean totally perfect if theres small flaws prime those spots and wet sand again till its perfect. Youll be painting car black right? so do best job in prepping every small imperfection will show, Im doing eclipse for guy now and ive primed it numerous times to get it perfect, paint job is as good as good as you work on it.