Almost done with my patch panels! Epoxy/filler question.

6 bolts is all it takes. His shop is literally a mile away from me so the plan is to put the cap on my trailer and put the bed on the truck in primer. I'll throw two bolts in it to take it to his shop. Then we can either use my bed lift thing or his fork lift to take it off. While he is painting the bed I'll have the truck home and do some work on the frame and stuff while its off. Then when the bed is done bring the truck back and have him help me situate it back on the truck and bolt her down and be done with it.

The cap I am going to put back on the trailer and then back in my garage for a week or two while the bed sits outside in the sun to finish curing (if that will even happen at 50 degrees.) I am going to try and leave the bed in his heated shop for as long as possible before picking it up.
 
Well the space heater seems to work just fine. It dropped to around 40 here last night and the little heater kept the garage at 75 warm degrees.

Ran into another problem through. I sprayed one coat of straight epoxy....and aside from having some dust in it which i'll just sand out before the next coat - Th black epoxy showed like 30 tiny cracks in the gelcoat that were impossible to see to the naked eye prior to epoxy. I filled the ones I did see with dolphin glaze prior and those sections look great. Apparently these tiny cracks in gel coat are called crazing. Probably from the cap being out in the elements since 2004.

Whats my best option here? Dolphin glaze to fill em before my second coat of epoxy tonight? Or should I use the rage gold I have? I dont have honey to thin it out though I assume i can expect these tiny cracks to come back? Its not the end of the world....Its a truck topper and most of them are on the top of it where no one but me will ever see. But if I can slow them down from coming through the base coat I would like to.

Need to figure it out before tonight as I have to have these to my buddy saturday morning. So that leaves tonight to get the second coat of epoxy on the cap....cure it overnight at 75 degrees... and then wet sand both the cap and the bed. Friday night is going to be a long one.
 
Well - I hope it was ok to use dolphin glaze to fill the tiny hairline gelcoat cracks because thats what I did. After another coat of epoxy it looks great.
Giving both the cap and the bed a quick once over with 600 tonight and its off to my buddy for base/clear in the morning.
 
Wow. That's awesome. Make sure to put up some pics once complete. More priming for me tomorrow followed by a round of blasting tonight. Yay me.:rolleyes:

What type of space heater are you using BTW?
 
My garage is tiny so just a little electric oscillating one. Keeps it around 80 degrees!

I wish I had a blaster. But don't have a big enough compressor. I'm painting with two compressors joined together before my filter. Lol
 
Wow. I ran 2 quartz heaters last night for 3 hours. One at 1500 watts and one at 750 watts. I was comfortable but not even close to 70. Mine heat objects which of course will radiate some heat, but I suspect yours has a small fan to circulate the heat. Maybe that's more effective.

Blaster is great now that I have it dialed in. Saved up and bought the 60 gal 2 stage from Harbor a little over 3 years ago. I work it hard. Especially when blasting. Runs like a champ. Couldn't be happier. You do stuff like we're doing and air is king.....
 
Yea one day when we buy a house I'll have a proper shop setup with a nice compressor.

Why don't you put a small fan in the shop to circulate the air while the heaters are on. Put it behind the heaters so it moves the warm air.
 
How did you make out this past weekend? Any pics?

Good idea on the fan. Didn't try it this weekend but the 2 heaters did the trick. Started final repair and prep on the inner panels at 9am Sat and sprayed my final coat of epoxy at 10:30pm. The heaters kept the panels between 75 and 80 degrees for 30 hours. Worked like a champ. The garage never went below 65 even with the temps in the low 40s overnight Sat and into the 30s last night. These quartz heaters heat objects so I suspect the warm sheet metal radiated enough heat to warm the garage air to 65.

Lots more to do, but no more rust...
IMG_4191.JPG
IMG_4194.JPG
 
looking good! Glad the heaters are working out for you.

So everything is getting sprayed today. Wet sanded until 3 AM friday night and dropped everything off at 8 AM Saturday morning. May pick it up tomorrow if not Thursday. Will update with pictures.

Once I got the bed outside on the trailer there are two spots I am concerned with on the passenger side that may have a bit of a wave to it on the top corners of the patches. My buddy didnt seem concerned and said you may not even be able too see it. As we all know, I'll probably be able to see imperfections that no one would see unless they know what theyre looking at.

I got the old bed detached no problem and will be removing it and cutting it up for the dumpster tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to treat and paint the frame tonight. Not sure if I am going to have enough time before we leave for vacation Saturday. So that may have to wait until we come home.

Bing- did you use anything to treat the rust before epoxy? Or just sanding?
 
Everything was sand blasted 2 months ago. As it was to remain bare while I did repairs and there were a number of seams or joints I treated everything with Ospho to protect the bare metal and to creep into the seams. This weekend I re-sandblasted some areas to remove the Ospho film. On other areas I re-activate the Ospho with more Ospho and then I scrub with water and Dawn and then rinsed with water.
 
Without further ado. Bed is on. Bumper is on. Cap is in the garage to get the windows back in. But now it's vacation time. Time to relax these bones a bit.

I'm very happy with how it came out considering this was my first try at mostly all of this. Hopefully it holds up to the northeast winters.
BCE89392-8BAC-41A7-9462-0B8D6D6FD09F.jpeg
9EED2876-D01B-4C91-B57C-D867D5C5757E.jpeg
7F76C219-F3E3-491D-8A46-E8B79431014B.jpeg
23E28614-9712-4D6D-89DD-8D9B830D6441.jpeg
317E85A6-FB95-481C-A54F-0B9830DA6C9D.jpeg
111D74CC-3C33-4B50-9298-C8AE4192EC0A.jpeg
 
And no the bed isn't "on" yet in that second picture. Lol. And everything is pretty dirty from being outside and installation. That's euro 2020 right from the gun.
 
Sure will! On vacation for a week so will hit the ground running when I get home.

I'm pissed off at myself though. I knicked the paint putting the tail light in. Can't tell if it is through the clear coat. It's on the inside edge By the tail light so could of been worse. Gonna take a few pics to see how best to deal with it
 
This is the bed it replaced.
297C5747-AFF6-4AA4-9756-607EBE0567B3.jpeg
7A1434A1-0E98-4B1D-9D36-57CD4320E2E8.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • 6B05A3BB-7D79-42A0-A9C4-810E70FFBA06.jpeg
    6B05A3BB-7D79-42A0-A9C4-810E70FFBA06.jpeg
    146 KB · Views: 125
Back
Top