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Play Me

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BODYWORK

2000 hrs into Body and Paint alone

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The paint and bodywork alone took over 2000 hours. It all started with hanging doors, fenders, hood, and decklid. Adjust, tweak, and twist as necessary to get the best gaps and lines possible. From there, weld and grind to set gaps on steel panels, working with the fiberglass as needed by adding and removing material, and setting gaps for the fenders and quarter panels. Slice flares to make them follow the wheel opening radius and re-glass to hold the desired shape.

Prep and epoxy metal surfaces that will be covered by any of the fiberglass add-ons. Mold flares into the fenders and quarters with fiberglass. Cut fiberglass rockers and mold the fender section permanently to lower the fender and shape into the flare, this way the fenders are removable (if necessary). Built brackets to mount the rest of the rocker moldings; they are also removable. The upper and lower side scoops come with mounting studs, so we used them to fasten as they did on original Shelbys, then finished molding them to the body with glass (no seams).

The headlight panel, front bumper, rear quarter extensions, taillight panel, rear bumper, and rear roll pan were all modified as necessary, removing and adding glass, and fabricating brackets to achieve the desired fitment.

Next, we finished the rest of the body and fiberglass panels with a skim coat of filler to perfect the lines and smooth any uneven areas. Very little to almost no filler was used, as seen in the pictures. We then epoxy-coated the entire car and applied 2 coats of VP 2050 primer. The primer was block sanded with the car assembled to fine-tune all lines and repair any small imperfections. We then took the car apart and applied a final 2 coats of VP 2050 primer making 4 total.

We placed the body on a rotisserie to finish the floor of the car and the engine bay, performing bodywork on the engine bay for a smooth finish. We also worked on the underside of the car to achieve the desired finish, priming the engine bay and bottom of the car as needed. We prepped the engine bay for paint by masking off, cleaning, sealing, and painting. 4 coats of silver base were sprayed, followed by 4 coats of clear to provide that ultimate shine. We then masked off the engine bay to epoxy and apply smooth bedliner to the bottom of the car, which gave the underside of the body excellent contrast to the painted chassis components.

The final wet sanding of the body and all bolt-on components were completed with 600 grit. We also wet sanded the underside of the hood and decklid to 600 grit as well. We masked, sealed, and painted the bottom of the hood and decklid. The body of the car and components were masked to receive black for the stripes. We assembled the fenders, hood, headlight panel, front and rear bumpers, decklid, and lower valance. The car was then blocked up in the booth to set up lasers for the layout of the tape lines for the stripes, making them perfect.

After completely masking off the stripes, we took the car apart again to finish prepping the body and components for the final paint. We applied 2 coats of silver to the body, removed it from the booth to bring in all other parts, and applied two coats of silver to all components. We then brought the body back in to hang all the components in place. The doors, fenders, hood, decklid, bumpers, valance, and rockers received the final 2 coats of silver to ensure color match. We then removed all the components to unmask the black stripes and applied 5 coats of clear for ultimate protection. The body was moved out to bring in the parts, and 5 coats of clear were applied to them as well.

After the clear coat had cured, we color-sanded the body and all parts in stages. We started with 1000 grit on a block, then moved to 1500 grit on a block, followed by 2000 grit on a firm pad, and finished with 3000 grit on a soft pad. We then polished the whole car to a high shine. Color sanding and polishing were also done in the engine compartment, all jambs, and the underside of the hood and decklid.

All this painstaking work was done to provide the ultimate final finish. The paint is immaculate and pops like no other in the sun. You will surely be the envy of all when you show off this true beauty queen.



Products are all PPG.
Epoxy primer: DP series
Primer: VP 2050
Sealer: K36
DBC Basecoat: Vapor Silver and Black Diamond (custom mix)
Clearcoat: DCU 2021

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