Fatbloke and Poppy Part 53. Progress… finally!

By Mike Peake

The name's Bloke - Fat Bloke - and I'm licensed to spray!

​As soon as I got home with my new primer kit, I was back in my tent. Poppy was tack clothed and panel wiped yet again. The primer was mixed 3:1 as per the instructions and filtered into the top of the gun. With great trepidation, I pointed the gun at yet another piece of cardboard and pulled the trigger….
 
YES! Success! An almost perfect spray pattern on the first attempt! A slight tweak on the fan, a slight lowering of the pressure and I was good to go. I pointed the gun at the car yelled “Tally Ho! Bandits at six o’clock” and off I went. I entered a Zen-like trance of concentration and thought of nothing else but my spraying technique. It was very therapeutic until the tank ran dry. I topped it back up and vowed to check the level more often. That bit will flat out I’m sure.
 
After what felt like an hour to my head, 3 days to my knees but was actually about 3 hours, Poppy was now a ghostly white. So, following the sage advice of my paint guru that stated, “when you’ve finished spraying LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!” I dutifully resealed the paint and hardener cans, disconnected the gun and carefully extracted myself from the tent before sealing that too. I had a big smile on my face for the whole time I was cleaning the gun and felt justified in my celebratory birthday pint of G&T and strongly worded email to my original paint supplier.

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The spooky ghost of Poppy

​I have to say that I was greatly relieved that all that angst in part 52 of the blog wasn’t down to bumbling incompetence and was just inexperience. Irritating as it was, if I had ever seen raw HB primer in a can before, I would have known it was wrong and saved myself hours of mental strife. I know now though, so if there is ever a time I choose to subject myself to this torture again, I won’t make that mistake.
 
The following day, I rushed home from work and before even going indoors to change, I was back in the tent inspecting my work. It wasn’t perfect by any means. There were a couple of spots where I could now see that my feathering of sanding marks wasn’t quite up to scratch. There were a couple of marks from an errant air hose. (Why can’t they invent a means of putting paint in a can and doing away with a great long unwieldy air hose?) There was also the bit where I accidentally sat on the bonnet while it was still wet. Oh, and a dead fly right in the middle of the bonnet.
 
However, for my first-ever attempt at spraying a car and in less than ideal conditions, I was actually quite pleased with myself. Poppy looked good and I feel that the blemishes listed above can be put right by rubbing down, filling and reapplying primer locally.
 
So, it was time to get back on with it. Filler was applied to the couple of areas where the sanding marks were showing and locally covered in primer on Friday afternoon after work. Saturday was spent flatting back the primer coat with wet 800 grit.
 
Now the boot lid, which appears to be cursed. I’d already rubbed it down to bare metal on the top because of the accident with the dust sheet after I sprayed it last year with rattle cans, but only lightly rubbed down the bottom as the painting was good here. Or so I thought. I’d then sprayed half the top with seagull poo and had to rub it back again.

​Then I sprayed the whole top with seagull poo and had to rub the whole thing down yet again. I had been storing the boot lid in the conservatory between jobs as it was getting in the way in the tent. Long term readers will know the terrible risk I was taking doing this but I learned my lesson and made sure I disguised it so Mrs FB wouldn’t notice.

Well I had my new primer now so used the last of it to spray my boot lid. Well, the top came out beautifully. However, it would appear that there was a problem with the paint I used last year. The primer that had gone over the paint on the bottom of the lid had wrinkled and cracked and red was bleeding through! I left it all to fully cure and went indoors muttering some very bad words. I am wondering if maybe I had put too much paint on too quickly last year which prevented it fully curing? This would also explain why it stuck to the dust cloth having been apparently dry?

​Anyway, Sunday found me back in my tent and spraying my car red. 2 mist coats and 2 proper coats. The time it took me to spray the car and return to the 1st bit for the next coat ensuring I didn’t put too much on too quickly. Once again, when done, I sealed everything up and LEFT it alone. 

​I returned to boot lid and had it back to bare metal. The primer sanded off easily but last year’s paint seemed really soft and kept clagging up the discs and smearing. However, I got it all back to bare metal eventually. Unfortunately, I’d run out of primer. So it was time to retire with a G&T followed by a fine Sunday roast!
 
Monday 20th May had been booked off work a couple of weeks ago so I could fit all the trim, lights and fuel tack etc so I would be ready for the Cotswold Tour. It would appear I was being rather optimistic though and suffering from the wasted time with duff primer.
 
So, instead I was back at the local paint supplier buying another litre of 2K HB white primer, which was applied to the boot lid immediately on my return. All was good! I finally had a boot lid in primer.

Poppy was now on the drive so I had room to properly spray the boot lid in the tent and I decided to leave her there while the boot lid dried. It was also better to see the results of my spraying in daylight rather than the dimmer interior of the tent.
 
Well in some ways I was quite impressed with myself. Even the bit I thought had run wasn’t really visible and I had a good even coat over most of the car. However, it wasn’t as shiny out of the can as I was expecting and I’m guessing that maybe I had the gun pressure too high as there was a lot of overspray settled onto the upper facing surfaces of the car.
 
After 8 hours of flatting back with wet 1500 grit paper I’d done most of the car. Just the bumper areas and front grill area were left to do. The overspray was removed quite easily however 8 hours of close contact with the car had revealed a further couple of sanding marks that I’d missed on the primer stage and I was a little bit grumpy until my daughter came home and was very impressed with the work so far. Then Anita came home from work and pointed out even more defects. She did finish by saying that it wasn’t bad for a 1st attempt, which is praise of the highest order from Mrs FB.
 

​The light was fading and so was I, so the boot lid was moved and disguised back into the conservatory and Poppy went back into the tent for the night. I retired to the bath because I was red too. On the plus side, I have no finger prints anymore, so a life of crime is now open to me.

​All I have left to do now is spray the boot lid red, finish flatting back the car, flat back the boot lid, compound polish and wax the whole car, put the light lenses and front grill through the dishwasher, (that conversation with Mrs FB will be interesting) wash and polish all the chrome trim on the polishing wheels and then put it all back onto Poppy… Refit the petrol tank and new rubber bumpers. All this in the 3 evenings left before the Cotswold tour.
 
It looks like Anita and I will be doing this one in her modern Mini or my CRV. Sorry chaps. Letting the side down aren’t I? (Of course you're not! Not even a little bit - Ed).


​To be continued...

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