Re: paint - advice please!

[Riley McDowall <roog@home.com>]

At 7:23 pm -0700 9/9/99, Kevin Collins wrote:
>He does work for the local VW dealer and has for years, so he's familiar
>with our cars - cool.  He's also familiar with dealing with the body kits,
>and says that they are virtually impossible to get off w/o damaging, then
>hard to get back on right again too.  He advises leaving it on to do the
>paint.  Couple of problems I see here - one, paint in the gaps between
>plastic and body, which will then of course crack and look like shit,

OK, I can possibly help out a bit here since my front end has logged some
time in spray booths this year.. :)  I've had both front fenders (incl.
flares), front bumper, and front airdam repainted, and all the parts save
the airdam were painted on the car.  I don't think you have to worry about
cracks forming in the seam between flare and sheetmetal.  What may happen,
if anything, is a gap in the coverage between flare and body - if there's
already a gap there, the paint won't fill it.  Duh. :)  This will probably
only be an issue if the flares have been taken off (and bent) in the past.
I've got a tiny little "hole" in the paint where the flare goes over top of
the side-molding crease.

>also the issue of using a flex agent in the body kit paint, he wants
>to spray the whole thing at once, so this would not be practical.  He

I don't think flex agent is necessary on any of the side elements of the
body kit.  The bumpers and maybe the front airdam should get flex agent to
make the paint a little more durable, but the side flares and sills should
be ok.  Mine were painted without any flex and they're still looking mint.

>Any comments on this anybody will be most appreciated.. the bottom line is
>that I want to get it done right - I mean show quality - and will pay
>to get it a quality job.  But if I can get it done at $1k+ cheaper than
>the ultra-anal place, naturally I'd rather do that.  If it takes $4k
>to *really* do it right, so be it, I'll do it.

One thing that will set your paint apart from almost all other cars on the
road is wet-sanding.  I know ppl on the list have talked about it before,
but the difference between fresh paint, no matter how well it's sprayed,
and fresh wet-sanded paint is immediately apparent.  My paint looks great,
but I saw a Mk1 that had been resprayed and sanded and my jaw dropped.
Find out how much extra it'll cost, and think about having it done!




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