First Body Work

I have no experience with doing bodywork on cars, but I do have a *lot* of experience shaping and finishing wood, so how hard could it be?  Ha!

So, off to Kragen Auto Parts to get a bunch of wet/dry sandpaper, sanding blocks, body filler and spatulas.  I decided to start with a surface rust/paint chip area just behind the driver's door.  It had been worked on before but needed to be re-done from scratch.  I put my wire wheel in my drill and ground away the old filler and rust, down to clean metal.  Then I mixed the filler and spread it on with a wide spatula.  I let it dry overnight and then sanded from coarse to 2000 grit.  The filler seemed to have some tiny air bubbles in it, so I mixed another small amount of filler and just topped it off.  Another overnight dry, then sanded to 2000.  I masked it off and sprayed primer and then a closely-matching silver top-coat.  I'm not worried about an exact match because I'll have the whole car painted when I get everything ready.  I have no idea why this blog software keeps rotating the picture...!  Argh.

With that under my belt, I attacked the trailing edge of the driver's door that had significant rust on the bend and even on the inside edge.  I used the wire wheel to grind off all of the rust down to bare metal.

I then did the filler and sanding thing again, with great results.  I must be getting better at mixing the filler because I didn't have any air bubbles.  I then sprayed primer and silver top-coat and it looks great.  Now only another 20 or so areas to fix up.