Still on the nose

Football season is back. When I arrived at the shop I tweeted that nobody was there. (You can follow me @garydunn808.) Later on a couple of guys showed up. Maybe it makes sense to close on Sundays.

Very little to write about today, only because it was a lot like last week. Sand, fill, sand some more. By the end of the day I was covered in dust and my arms were sore. I guess that's what days off are for.

In the end, both sides looked a lot nicer.

Starting to design a tool to shape the roundel opening. Looked around for raw materials but the shop was cleaned recently and all sorts of cool junk was tossed. One piece should bolt to the roundel mounting holes and establish a center, a second piece should turn on the center and establish the edge. What to use for that, given I have no lathe?

Nice to be back, still on the nose

The road trip was a blast. You can see my picks on Facebook. Great to be back.

Today was about finding the correct shape for all those compound curves at the nose. Along the way I decided to remove all of the remaining rusty bolts from the aluminum trim piece. Before I began I did a left - center - right photo sequence to document my starting point.

The first thing to do was shape the curves at the LH corner. I took a serious of photos to show how the shape gradually appears.

I have been using the aluminum trim piece as a guide for shaping the nose, which appears to have been moved rearward here and there. Getting the bolts to line up with the holes was a time waster, so I decided to remove them. They slide along the grove to a wide spat midway between center and each end. All the bolts are rusty and the aluminum is corroded. In some cases it took a shot of PB Blaster. One had to be ground out.

After getting the LH side as good as I could I worked on the rest of the nose. There are some ups and downs on both sides, but the RH side especially.

I ended the day with an application of TECHNIFILL in some places and POR-15 Epoxy Filler in others.

Still raining in August, more nose work

This certainly has been an odd summer. Drought all winter, and finally some rain in July which continued into August. Not much, but enough to help.

I picked up some etching primer and a new tube of Por Patch at Redline Automotive, then spent my day sanding and filling. When the filler was hardening on one side I worked on the other.

I dug out the front body trim to use as a guide for shaping the curves at the corners, both of which have some old damage. Today I was only far enough along to check the LH side, but I did discover that I had to build out the front and side to get a good fit. I applied the POR-15 Epoxy Filler just before leaving.

Redline had a can of etching primer they claim goes on over POR-15 paint, so I used that to cover the fiberglass patch on the RH corner. Went on thin but no hassles. Did a lot of sanding and filling with TECHNIFILL to level the RH side.

Spent a lot of time sculpting the top of the center grill opening, at least on the LH side. The trick is to find the original planes, then soften the curves. The two major planes are the vertical face at the front edge, and the angled plane of the grill openings. As I got those developed I found a low spot at the top of the pillar, and on the inside of the upper, curved opening. Added some TECHNIFILL there.

Would you hire this guy to work on your car?

LH nose sand and primer

Spent a lot of time on the E9 today, even though it doesn't seem like much.

Began with smoothing out the filler applied last week, using sanding blocks and #50 paper. Important thing was to establish the height at the hood cutout corner. This would establish the shape of the concave curve between the hood opening and the top of fender and how the shape progresses towards the roundel mount. Shaping the cutout at the hood opening corner took some work.

After applying a little more filler I ran the headlight buckets through the POR-15 clean and prep drill. All that black means the Metal Ready is working. I can't decide whether to leave them the way they are or weld in some patches.

Did more sanding, found more low spots, especially at the LH corner. Add more TECHNIFILL.

The contours finally began to come into focus. Spent a lot of time working out the curves at the LH corner, were multiple curve planes converge.

Eventually I reached the point where I had to paint the entire area to get a better look at the contours. Began with Evercoat #720 Acid-Etch Primer, and after a thirty minute dry time a few coats of High Build Primer. I'll start sanding that next week.

Shaping the nose

Today's shop session was short because my wife and I attended a concert by Jeff Peterson and Riley Lee. It was a great performance.

I started by smoothing out the epoxy filler sections, first with my grinder and later by my orbital sander and hand sanding block. The goal was to lope off the high spots but not too much, as these areas were filling low spots. The area around the RH side of the roundel recess needed Epoxy Filler to blend in the fiberglass patch, so I decided to proceed only on the LH side.

I sanded away the protective layer of paint I had covered the area with, back to bare metal. Then came an initial application of TECHNIFILL. When that had set I sanded it a bit, then added a second batch, which is how I left it. I was able to shape the filler around the roundel recess using a ball-shaped grinding stone.