A little more blue touchup

Today was about getting the rig's "narrative" to be more consistent.  As much as I liked the way the side steps came out, the orange and black went right up to the edge, which is where the fender bolts on.  (I'd forgotten this in my sanding blizzard.)  So I had to repaint the leading edge of each side and fade it in with what was already there.  I used an old technique from my photo developing days, holding my hand above the surface by a few inches and moving it slightly back and forth to fade the paint.  Here's the unsanded respray.

While the blue was loaded in the paint gun, I did the hinges and the inner window frame, as well.

And the front panel of the main window frame, which had too much texture and bothered me.

Bumper and blue touch up

After getting the 1/4" thick brackets off, I still had to get at the bumper with a grinding disc to smooth it out and make it less a source of tetanus.

Here's what I started with.

After about forty minutes of grinding.  Wee bit of heat buildup.

There was some permanent scarring of the pump, but I'm not terribly concerned.  It's on the outside of the bumper-frame joint, so it's not that structural.

Rather than fight to get this trapezoidal plate off, I just smoothed it out and pour some Permatex Rust Treatment behind it.  Job done on that.

Note the slots where the license plate will mount.

Now for the Permatex.  I used one of my little woodworker's glue brushes to slather it on.

The black coating started to show almost immediately.  A good/not-so-good sign.

While I had the Permatex out, I went over the tailgate hinges, which I'd already scrubbed clean.

Hardening up quickly.

Clear coat

Jerry can holder.  While I had the painting itch, I thought I'd give it a once over with the DA sander.

Back to the hood.

Not bad, as I said before.  Starting to look more like my end goal.

That rust oxide from TCP is just too orange.  I can't have this much of it exposed.

The subtler parts work overall, I think.

Repainting some parts.  With the harshness of the flash, the silhouettes of my patch panels still come through, but a nicely placed dash plaque and an overdrive sticker will hide some of these edges, I think.

My wife called this my wind chime.  That dang swing set just keeps coming in handy for me.

Touch-up painting

As the title says, some touch up.  I'm still not satisfied with the final look.

Potato chips, anyone?

Painted over the rubbed out spots here.  I kept thinking that the grille needed to be solid blue.  I want it to look good from the front.

Still working over the cowl.  Not happy yet.

A few runs, but I'll sand them down.

These are more subtle, which I like.

This ain't so subtle.  I'll live with it for now and make a decision later.

Sanding until my arm falls off

Not much to say today.  Once the three coats are on (the black, the rust oxide, and the blue), I have to achieve the patina look by sanding through the top coat and some of the orange to give it that weather-beaten look.  It was exhausting.  About six hours of sanding today.

I started with wetsanding with 400 grit paper.  The trick is to get the top layer off in such a way that it looks "natural."

Consider this a rough draft.  Too much orange, not enough black.

You can really see the texture the brush and roller gave the paint job.

In action.  Hunched over for hours.

The driver's fender was starting to get the right look.

I'm liking the tailgate, too.

The black here is too black, I think.  Looks more like spray paint than rub through, which makes sense since that what the black is.

Tweaking tweaking tweaking.  Not satisfied at this point.  Just isn't looking right.

Again, not bad here.

This one's problematic.  Had to add more black to restart.

On the cowl, I had the same issues: burn through or too much orange.  It was a fine line that I couldn't quite seem to walk.

This looks a lot less blue than it really is.  I'm liking this part.  The scuffing on the tub rails works.

This doesn't  The black looks off, and I've exposed too much orange.

 Recovering burn through.

Working my way around the tub.

This was the spot that really bugged me.  Once I started sanding the dash, my patch panels welded in way back when started to show through.  If you look carefully, you can see the vague, uncertain outline of the oval one.  It just won't do.