The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop The Chicken or the egg?

My Dad, brother and I have a disagreement on the sequence of events for bodywork and paint. We went ahead and got all the body work done and are in the process of test fitting everything before final bodywork and paint. I have also been working on the interior and have painted with a good rustpaint and am in process of applying some insulation. Now the next steps are what is puzzling. What is the recommended sequence...
1. Put all of the interior back together including the wiper headliner cover, headliner, seat, gastank, dash, doors, glass, windsheild etc. Then send it out for final bodywork and paint. This is what my Dad and brother want to do because they are in fear of the body getting scratched and damaged during reassembly.
2. Test fit all components and then completely disassemble and send out for paint. That way all joining points get painted like in the door jams, inside of doors, under seat etc. Then be very careful during reassembly and use lots of brown packaging paper to cover the body to prevent surface scratches.

We also want to know about how to paint all body components too like fenders, running boards, box sides, hood...send all in disassembled or build the truck and get it painted assembled which would miss the areas that the body parts attach to each other?

I vote for complete paint on everything, with that many working on it the extra manpower translates into having the extra care care in assembling available. Bubble wrap can be your friend and if the fresh paint has a chance to cure for a month or more it won't scratch as readily.

IMO you'll get the best job completely disassembled, reasonable care during assembly avoids dings, along with a lot of painters tape around the edges - use cloth, like old sheets and light blankets to avoid surface scratches rather than paper - and depending on your shop it may be cheaper painting separate parts because the shop will have very little masking to do

Bill

Hahaha, Thanks Caso...Just because some people feel the need to voice their opinion (my brother and Dad) it doesn't mean that they are helping with the work! That being said, it should have plenty of cure time as I only actually get about 3 hours a week if I'm lucky to work on it.

Great idea with the sheets and blankets Bill! Never even thought of that. Wonder what the wife will think of her disappearing linen closet. haha

Best way is paint everything in pieces, then reassemble. Like the others said, tape off edges, cover fenders and panels. I picked up ( 3 ) old comforters at the Goodwill store that worked well. If you have lots of help when assembling stuff it should go a lot easier / chance of damage a lot lower. If you are planning on using fender welting, its much easier tp preglue it onto the fender flanges before bolting them up to the body.

On our 64 we did paint the interior and firewall first to get the cab back on the chassis and the truck running / rolling again- then we epoxy primed all body panels and assembled to check for fit and smooth out panels- and to be sure they were somewhat flush with each other. Next step is disassembly ( again) and shooting color on panels seperatly then reassemble everything. that's how we planned it and the blankets and taping for corners will certainly be done when we reassemble our painted parts...

The only thing I would add is if you're using a high metallic topcoat, paint everything 'at the same time' using the same paint mix. You can vary the 'color' of metallic paint by changing the amount of thinner, air pressure, humidity, etc. so painting it all at the same time using the same mix minimizes the chance for mismatch.

And the one thing I'd ad to what Tiny said is make sure the piece is sitting in the proper position (vertical/horizontal wise) so the flakes settle into a uniform position in regards to gravities effect on how they lay out.