Factory Five Cobra

Thanks everyone! As for the carpet, it was something I always wanted to try out. my buddy is a carpet installer and has a garage full of the scraps/leftovers so I figured why not. It was all new and I vacuumed it about 6 times before I started to paint. It's not the type of carpet I would use permanently but it was free and perfect for a trial run.

The best part was when I spent the 2 evenings layout out the stripes, I was just in my bare feet and comfortable! It was like painting in my living room without my wife screaming at me!
 
Excellent. All that blocking paid off its super straight. Only epoxy and poly used for the surface work? Have you ever compared the 4:1 poly to slick sand?
Got to love the 4th photo down in post 4 of the side of the front fender. You can really see how straight that is.

I used to only use slick sand, I feel 4:1 builds a little better. Both seem to sand about the same though.
 
I’ve seen a few shops on Instagram that have it and swear by it, one SPI shop that turns out high quality work. How long it lasts and how often they have to vacuum I have no clue.

You may be referring to my buddy Kevin(thatpaintguy). He and I were talking about carpet for a long time and he went ahead and tried it and had good results so I figured Id give it a shot.
 
That was some pretty bad craters the owner had in his filler work. I'm sure sitting in the sun for a month with black epoxy went a long ways towards stabilizing all the crap you had to fix, especially on the doors.
People don't realize the power of hard types of expanding foam. In the entry door & window business manufacturers used to warn they'd void warranty if it was used before the softer foams came out.
 
Gorgeous job. I have a Vette I'm doing now that has a story like yours where the owner had dreams of doing it all himself.
 
Excellent job! Love the color combo!
A Factory Five Speed 33 will be my next build.
 
Looks great. I've always had a soft spot for these cars. I looked at building one for a long time before I got my pickup.

I really like the carpet idea, I'm half tempted to go buy a chunk for my booth. What is the preferred type do you think? Just a cut pile?
 
That was some pretty bad craters the owner had in his filler work. I'm sure sitting in the sun for a month with black epoxy went a long ways towards stabilizing all the crap you had to fix, especially on the doors.
People don't realize the power of hard types of expanding foam. In the entry door & window business manufacturers used to warn they'd void warranty if it was used before the softer foams came out.


Ya, most of it i dug out and replaced it. Hell some of it was still wet from 7 years ago that he didn't mix up properly! When I went and looked at the car to quote it I saw the bubbles on the door and asked about it and he fessed up that he used the wrong foam and he wasn't expecting it to be able to be fixed, but after cutting it all open and clamping a flat piece of metal to the door and re-glassing them they came out decent.
 
Looks great. I've always had a soft spot for these cars. I looked at building one for a long time before I got my pickup.

I really like the carpet idea, I'm half tempted to go buy a chunk for my booth. What is the preferred type do you think? Just a cut pile?

This was just a trial run, I think when I make the purchase I will have be a "low pile" style.
 
so is carpet better than wetting the floor? I had planned to use a pump sprayer to wet the ground before painting.
 
so is carpet better than wetting the floor? I had planned to use a pump sprayer to wet the ground before painting.

Short answer wetting the floor increases the humidity which in turn causes urethanes to cure quicker. Makes spraying clear more difficult to get it to lay out nicely.
Carpet....I'm not sold on it. Best course is to make sure you and your car are clean. Nice clean paintsuit for you. Car...backtape openings so that you "seal" the car when masking. Spend time getting the car clean before painting. 90% of trash comes from the car and the painter. Sweep or vac the floor real good, and that will be good enough.
 
Best course is to make sure you and your car are clean. Nice clean paintsuit for you. Car...backtape openings so that you "seal" the car when masking. Spend time getting the car clean before painting. 90% of trash comes from the car and the painter. Sweep or vac the floor real good, and that will be good enough.
I paint in less than ideal conditions and am still able to paint jobs with very little trash. I've also painted in some of the most expensive downdraft booths you can buy. Painting in those booths really taught me how to prep a car, because I knew any dirt in the paint was not coming from the booth. As Chris said, 90% of trash comes from the vehicle or the painter. Washing the car thoroughly (under the hood, door jambs, wheelwells,etc.) before taping and wearing a suit goes a long way towards a trash free paint job.
 
One key for me was back masking a car. Sealing the openings especially the wheelwells. Any open space behind a panel is a potential source of dirt/trash.
Dedicated paint suit, mask it properly, tack the vehicle multiple times while painting...before sealer, before 1st coat of base, before 3rd coat, sometimes after every coat, but at least 2x while spraying base. Then once before clear. Every square inch of the body. Blow yourself off in the direction of the airflow, before sealer, before 1st coat of base, before 1st coat of clear.
 
Ya, i do all of that. I don't get a ton of trash in my jobs without the carpet. Just your normal shit you'd expect being in a garage. I typically d-nib after sealer and that helps me out a ton. Now my biggest issue is really the floor. Its not brand new cement, its pretty pores(if that makes sense) and Its hard to get the floor in my garage spotless. so when I go down to hit the lower parts or I'm spraying down on a hood that's on a stand the air bounces off the ground and definitely will throw stuff up. I don't like papering a floor and I'm not a fan of wetting the floor. The carpet did the trick for me, wasn't the end all to my dust/dirt issues, but it did help.

I understand the all the preparations needed as explained, trust me. When I painted for a living I could walk in to the booth and do half of the prep as I do at home and I would get like 2 dust nibs. But that was a nice downdraft booth and at home is a garage.

I swear, if i had a dedicated booth at home, just a bay in the garage sealed off for nothing but painting I might actually fall back in love with doing this work. I hate doing the bodywork where the painting happens. It absolutely sucks, been doing it for years now and no matter how great your setup is, you'll always have issues.

I've got to fine tune a few things on this disaster, but I'll be tearing it down to start painting it pretty soon and I'm absolutely dreading it.......Got it in final epoxy last week.

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