Major development – the Imperial is back from paint! And it looks great!
After all the body work I had done the car was sprayed with a sealer, three coats of black basecoat, and three coats of clear coat. Normally only two coats of clear are applied – we went with three coats to provide a margin of error for sanding and polishing.
There is a saying in the automotive world: If it is perfect, paint it black. Black paint showcases any defects or flaws in the body. Any dents, ripples, bulges, bends, or other imperfections that would be invisible with other colors will demand your immediate attention in black. The Imperial isn’t perfect – but it is close! The body is really straight and the repairs I’ve done are good enough that you can’t see them. There are a few minor issues – that I’m very aware of! – but most people will never notice. And it looks so much better than it did before!
No more shotgun marks, cracks, dents, chips, rust holes, exposed primer, or damaged paint. And the paint is glossy, not weathered patina.
It has been a bit of a journey to get here. I started serious work on bodywork and paint preparation in February. In April I thought I was down to a couple of weeks of work and started searching for someone to paint it.
It turns out that it isn’t easy to find someone willing to work on restorations – most shops just do accident repair and insurance work and aren’t interested in someone bringing them a project for paint only. I can kind of understand this. 90% of paint quality is based on prep work. If they just spray the car they will be blamed for any issues. So most shops want to do all the work themselves.
I found a shop willing to take on the job and tentatively scheduled the work for May. Then reality hit – the more old paint I stripped off the car the more problems were uncovered. I whined about this in several previous posts… Time passed, work continued, and the car was finally ready for paint around August 1.
This was when the problems started. The paint shop was backed up 6 weeks. No problem, I can wait. After 6 weeks I got back in touch with them. First I couldn’t get the job scheduled. Then they stopped returning my calls. Fine – if they don’t want to do the job, I don’t want them to do it!
Which put me back to square one. I had a recommendation for a small local body shop: Atlas Auto Body in Berlin, MA. They are an old school one man operation that has been around for about 40 years. I talked to them, reached agreement on the work to be done, and scheduled the job for the week after Thanksgiving.
When the day arrived I had the Imperial towed to the body shop. Although the car was running great and the shop was only five miles away by back roads, all of the turn signals and lights were off the car and out at the chrome shop. With my luck, if I drove it there would be a police parade on the road and they would be in a bad mood. Towing was $125 and worth it for my peace of mind.
After a few days I got a call: the trunk lid was finished and he wanted me to look at it to make sure that it was what I wanted before proceeding with the rest of the job. I looked, it was what I wanted, and he proceeded with the rest of the car. A few more days and the car was ready. Close examination didn’t turn up any issues, so write the check, call the tow company, and drag it home!
Which brings us to today. The paint looks good – most people would leave it just at it is. But it could be better: there is moderate orange peel (texture in the paint that comes from the painting process itself) and some dust nibs. To make it look great it should be color sanded, buffed, and polished. I think you can see where this is going…
It needs to be sanded with three or four different grits of sandpaper and then polished with three different grades of polish. All 63 acres of the car body. Yup, going completely over the entire car six or seven times. Have I mentioned recently that I’m not very bright? And that I’m a glutton for punishment with no sense of self preservation? Sigh…
In an amusing coincidence, while waiting for the tow truck to bring the Imperial home I got a call from the chrome shop – all of the trim was done and ready to be picked up. Looks like a quick trip down to Pennsylvania to pick up the trim before the weather turns bad. Report to follow!
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Next article: getting the trim pieces back from the plating shop in I’ll Be Chrome For Christmas.