With the Lotus back on the road I can once again turn my attention to the subject of this blog. But time is running out on the van. It needs a new belt idler pulley and again the fans are not coming on. I'll try to do those things at home.
Before I went to the shop I checked here to see what I had last done on the E9. My starting point was sanding down the filler applied at the end of the last session. So many weeks have passed that I had to wash the nose down with soap and water to prevent grinding oily dirt into what I sanding.
The good news is that after a lot of sanding I finally started to feel the contours emerge. This is hard to explain. You start with rust or collision damaged sheet metal, cut holes, weld patches. It is a mess. As the fillers go on and are shaped, something special happens. The long, smooth contours of the original panel begin to emerge. Sanding is not just about smoothing, it is about exposing the original shape.
Before I went to the shop I checked here to see what I had last done on the E9. My starting point was sanding down the filler applied at the end of the last session. So many weeks have passed that I had to wash the nose down with soap and water to prevent grinding oily dirt into what I sanding.
The good news is that after a lot of sanding I finally started to feel the contours emerge. This is hard to explain. You start with rust or collision damaged sheet metal, cut holes, weld patches. It is a mess. As the fillers go on and are shaped, something special happens. The long, smooth contours of the original panel begin to emerge. Sanding is not just about smoothing, it is about exposing the original shape.
At the end of the session I could feel this happening. Many contrasting layers and colors of paint and filler interfere with the discovery, so I ended the session with a coat of etching primer. I will try to stop in one afternoon and shoot some sanding primer on top, to make next Saturday more productive.
posted from Bloggeroid
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