#the marker texture is NOT worth having to work on 1 layer. and the crashes and redrawing. christ

[daily-madcom-drawings]

Day 107

[eddiejpoplar]

By Design: Genesis Essentia Concept

In terms of physical appearance, this flashy, highly attractive all-electric sports car is as pure a dream car as it’s possible to make. Practicality is sacrificed to style everywhere, but I suspect that was intentional. Witness the sublime all-glass roof, exquisite in profile and plan, unblemished by ordinary details like rain gutters, rearview mirrors, or windshield wipers. There’s ample structure within, but it’s all well hidden with no external manifestation. Rear-seat headroom is severely restrained, but who cares? It’s magnificent visually, and that’s certainly what was desired. Bumpers, marker lamps, license plate brackets, locks, all those real-world necessities distributed over the whole body, are simply ignored for the Essentia. Aesthetically, that’s all to the good. Practically, not so much.

When I started work for a major manufacturer 64 years ago, stylists were told by the best body engineers in the business that side windows had to be a couple of inches inward from the nominal body surfaces, and they had to be flat because curved windows were too expensive to even think about. But we could sketch and factories could make extreme wraparound windshields just two decades after the first curved windshield in a production car (1934 Chrysler Airflow Imperial).

Ten years after we were told it was unthinkable, curved side glass was featured on 1964 Ramblers. Curved glass, later generalized throughout the industry, was still set in from the ideal surface, though. Engineers couldn’t do flush glass, or so they thought, until Audi showed the way 20 years later. So maybe a lot of what we see here will be with us sooner than we expect.

In fact, perhaps we should consider the Essentia as the Car of Tomorrow (though it is not fully autonomous), because many of its deviations from today’s normal practices could become standard soon. Consider its lack of regulation-height bumpers and the fact that the rear spoiler is vulnerable to damage from truck front ends. Bumpers will be unnecessary if self-driving cars all but eliminate crashes, and as more of the total human-driven fleet becomes computer-aided, even those cars will (probably) stop themselves before they hit anything. But that has no bearing on the fleet on the road today, many of them half of a century old and totally without driver aids.

So we’ll just get rid of them. Older (and not very old, at that), primarily diesel cars are being restricted and soon might be banned outright in many European cities, including Mercedes-Benz’s home town of Stuttgart. Someday soon we Americans may find our cherished early Mustangs, Camaros, and their ilk banished from urban areas, too. If that happens, in-town fender-benders will become rare indeed. But that doesn’t mean we’ll all travel in bland, characterless pods. Instead, many of tomorrow’s cars—like this one—can, and probably will, be gorgeous objects precisely because they’ll be impervious to (or at least unthreatened by) traffic damage, if not to acts of God. But electronic protection won’t stop falling trees or rising flood waters. Not yet, anyway.

Worth Noting: The images here are not retouched photographs. They’re not photos at all, actually, but instead computer-generated renderings, made from the same data set that formed the tooling for the body panels.

1. The lower lip of the nose, derived from the lower corner air scoops, is really nicely modeled. Why those big air inlets are there at all is another question.

2. This hard line defines the separation of external lower body surfaces and the bubble canopy roof from the interior panels of the complex front end, with its transparencies allowing a look at the front suspension components.

3. The glass extension of the windshield, which might nominally be considered the hood, is depressed from the principal envelope, dropping down sharply behind the grille, which is itself set behind the triangular main air inlet.

4. This elegant crease represents the fender profile and disappears in the rear deck in the same way it rises from the body skin here.

5. You get a clear impression of the depth of the side indentation in this view. There is a passage from the front corner inlets to the leading edge of the side cove.

6. It’s hard to believe that these two tiny light bars are capable of providing adequate headlight illumination, but LEDs and computer-controlled reflectors are able to do amazing things today.

7. The main blade of the lower lip runs into the corner inlet; a separate blade finishes the fender form behind it. Beautiful modeling, but any aerodynamic benefit is not discussed.

8. Three Layers back, this textured grille closes off the part you can see.

9. The nicely modulated triangular inlet shape, with a softly curved upper bar and a pair of kinked straight sections joined by a nice radius at the bottom, makes a pleasant composition.

10. Just behind is a parenthesis-shaped grille frame with a single horizontal bar running the full width and a pair of bars above the outer ends. It’s all a little complicated.

1. The entire roof shape is elegantly aerodynamic, a perfect fastback profile.

2. The rear-seat headrests are visible and suggest this cabin is meant for two adults and two children—not two couples.

3. It might have been good to have a little more rise in the fender profile over the rear wheels, but this is smooth and subtly graceful, hard to fault.

4. Back up to a wall, and it’s the spoiler trailing edge that will touch, not the nominal bumper strike face.

5. The curve at the rear of the door is superb, though the front door cut is unusually convoluted. Door length is exceptionally long, tough for access in tight quarters.

6. A curiosity is the ending of the upper side lamp so that a line tangent to the two light blades is not parallel to the panel edge behind them.

7. The intricate wheels are a visual mixture of old-fashioned wires and thin-ribbed alloy designs, milled from solid billets. Exceptionally impressive objects, however made.

8. A nice bladelike nose leans rearward both above and below the strong peak line derived from the lamps. No bumper protection at all for this dramatic concept car.

1. The sharp crease on the front fender peak carries on all the way past the end of the roof glazing.

2. The subtle hard line generated by the leading edge of the hole in the top of the nose carries all the way around the car.

3. The fluidity of the glass “hood” flowing up into the windshield can be appreciated in this high rear view.

4. A particularly nice detail is the small, flat band described by the hard line on the nose that is just a bit behind the intersection of the backlight and the painted skin, making a slight—very slight—break in the fastback profile.

5. Another reasonably hard line defines the break from fastback profile to full-width rear spoiler.

6. The central round-bottom V-shaped feature occupies some space below the oval indent described by the spoiler edge, above, and the diffuser surface tapering forward and down.

7. The upper edge of the diffuser panel runs below the nominal bottom of the body, leaving a gap so the diffuser seems to be completely detached.

8. The side cove, very much like that on 1956-62 Corvette C1 models, has no trim outlining its shape but does have a rib to catch the light that runs from behind the rear door cut into the big front fender outlet just ahead of the door.

1. Thumbwheels in the spokes are practical. Someone has seen a Tesla Model 3, it would appear.

2. The fat, leather-covered steering wheel rim looks sharp and is flattened at the bottom to signify “sport.”

3. The square-cornered digital data panel looks out of place amid the voluptuous curves and soft materials. A soft surround with internal corner radii would be nice.

4. The manner in which the layered side treatment carries all the way around to the toe board is aesthetically pleasing and should be good for cabin quiet. Not that electrics are noisy.

5. Likewise, the diagonal pleating at 45 degrees from the seat centerline aesthetically successful, providing directional thrust visually and suggesting comfort.

6. The texture of the cockpit sidewall changes slightly at the front door cut.

7. The joining of the door side-panel upholstery coming away from the armrest to the seat cushion leaves no gaps for pens or glasses to fall into. It is an impressive detail that promises excellent comfort.

1. The rear edge of the spoiler is described by a flat band, the lower edge of which outlines the rear fascia oval encompassing the rear lamps.

2. The lower surface of that oval is in opposition to the underside of the spoiler. Well sculpted.

3. The two-bar taillights recapitulate the front-end theme and are wonderfully simple and thus elegant.

4. This hard line softens a bit toward the center of the car, but the rear panel is clearly defined.

5. Four pendant fins in the rear diffuser suggest racing intentions.

6. The bottom edge of the rear fender sweeps upward dramatically.

7. The lower profile of the sill flows upward from the rear wheel opening then turns downward to parallel the bottom edge of the cove.

8. This rib curves upward from its origin at the end of the side cove then thrusts forward into the black hole at the back end of the front fender.

[jonathanbelloblog]

By Design: Genesis Essentia Concept

In terms of physical appearance, this flashy, highly attractive all-electric sports car is as pure a dream car as it’s possible to make. Practicality is sacrificed to style everywhere, but I suspect that was intentional. Witness the sublime all-glass roof, exquisite in profile and plan, unblemished by ordinary details like rain gutters, rearview mirrors, or windshield wipers. There’s ample structure within, but it’s all well hidden with no external manifestation. Rear-seat headroom is severely restrained, but who cares? It’s magnificent visually, and that’s certainly what was desired. Bumpers, marker lamps, license plate brackets, locks, all those real-world necessities distributed over the whole body, are simply ignored for the Essentia. Aesthetically, that’s all to the good. Practically, not so much.

When I started work for a major manufacturer 64 years ago, stylists were told by the best body engineers in the business that side windows had to be a couple of inches inward from the nominal body surfaces, and they had to be flat because curved windows were too expensive to even think about. But we could sketch and factories could make extreme wraparound windshields just two decades after the first curved windshield in a production car (1934 Chrysler Airflow Imperial).

Ten years after we were told it was unthinkable, curved side glass was featured on 1964 Ramblers. Curved glass, later generalized throughout the industry, was still set in from the ideal surface, though. Engineers couldn’t do flush glass, or so they thought, until Audi showed the way 20 years later. So maybe a lot of what we see here will be with us sooner than we expect.

In fact, perhaps we should consider the Essentia as the Car of Tomorrow (though it is not fully autonomous), because many of its deviations from today’s normal practices could become standard soon. Consider its lack of regulation-height bumpers and the fact that the rear spoiler is vulnerable to damage from truck front ends. Bumpers will be unnecessary if self-driving cars all but eliminate crashes, and as more of the total human-driven fleet becomes computer-aided, even those cars will (probably) stop themselves before they hit anything. But that has no bearing on the fleet on the road today, many of them half of a century old and totally without driver aids.

So we’ll just get rid of them. Older (and not very old, at that), primarily diesel cars are being restricted and soon might be banned outright in many European cities, including Mercedes-Benz’s home town of Stuttgart. Someday soon we Americans may find our cherished early Mustangs, Camaros, and their ilk banished from urban areas, too. If that happens, in-town fender-benders will become rare indeed. But that doesn’t mean we’ll all travel in bland, characterless pods. Instead, many of tomorrow’s cars—like this one—can, and probably will, be gorgeous objects precisely because they’ll be impervious to (or at least unthreatened by) traffic damage, if not to acts of God. But electronic protection won’t stop falling trees or rising flood waters. Not yet, anyway.

Worth Noting: The images here are not retouched photographs. They’re not photos at all, actually, but instead computer-generated renderings, made from the same data set that formed the tooling for the body panels.

1. The lower lip of the nose, derived from the lower corner air scoops, is really nicely modeled. Why those big air inlets are there at all is another question.

2. This hard line defines the separation of external lower body surfaces and the bubble canopy roof from the interior panels of the complex front end, with its transparencies allowing a look at the front suspension components.

3. The glass extension of the windshield, which might nominally be considered the hood, is depressed from the principal envelope, dropping down sharply behind the grille, which is itself set behind the triangular main air inlet.

4. This elegant crease represents the fender profile and disappears in the rear deck in the same way it rises from the body skin here.

5. You get a clear impression of the depth of the side indentation in this view. There is a passage from the front corner inlets to the leading edge of the side cove.

6. It’s hard to believe that these two tiny light bars are capable of providing adequate headlight illumination, but LEDs and computer-controlled reflectors are able to do amazing things today.

7. The main blade of the lower lip runs into the corner inlet; a separate blade finishes the fender form behind it. Beautiful modeling, but any aerodynamic benefit is not discussed.

8. Three Layers back, this textured grille closes off the part you can see.

9. The nicely modulated triangular inlet shape, with a softly curved upper bar and a pair of kinked straight sections joined by a nice radius at the bottom, makes a pleasant composition.

10. Just behind is a parenthesis-shaped grille frame with a single horizontal bar running the full width and a pair of bars above the outer ends. It’s all a little complicated.

1. The entire roof shape is elegantly aerodynamic, a perfect fastback profile.

2. The rear-seat headrests are visible and suggest this cabin is meant for two adults and two children—not two couples.

3. It might have been good to have a little more rise in the fender profile over the rear wheels, but this is smooth and subtly graceful, hard to fault.

4. Back up to a wall, and it’s the spoiler trailing edge that will touch, not the nominal bumper strike face.

5. The curve at the rear of the door is superb, though the front door cut is unusually convoluted. Door length is exceptionally long, tough for access in tight quarters.

6. A curiosity is the ending of the upper side lamp so that a line tangent to the two light blades is not parallel to the panel edge behind them.

7. The intricate wheels are a visual mixture of old-fashioned wires and thin-ribbed alloy designs, milled from solid billets. Exceptionally impressive objects, however made.

8. A nice bladelike nose leans rearward both above and below the strong peak line derived from the lamps. No bumper protection at all for this dramatic concept car.

1. The sharp crease on the front fender peak carries on all the way past the end of the roof glazing.

2. The subtle hard line generated by the leading edge of the hole in the top of the nose carries all the way around the car.

3. The fluidity of the glass “hood” flowing up into the windshield can be appreciated in this high rear view.

4. A particularly nice detail is the small, flat band described by the hard line on the nose that is just a bit behind the intersection of the backlight and the painted skin, making a slight—very slight—break in the fastback profile.

5. Another reasonably hard line defines the break from fastback profile to full-width rear spoiler.

6. The central round-bottom V-shaped feature occupies some space below the oval indent described by the spoiler edge, above, and the diffuser surface tapering forward and down.

7. The upper edge of the diffuser panel runs below the nominal bottom of the body, leaving a gap so the diffuser seems to be completely detached.

8. The side cove, very much like that on 1956-62 Corvette C1 models, has no trim outlining its shape but does have a rib to catch the light that runs from behind the rear door cut into the big front fender outlet just ahead of the door.

1. Thumbwheels in the spokes are practical. Someone has seen a Tesla Model 3, it would appear.

2. The fat, leather-covered steering wheel rim looks sharp and is flattened at the bottom to signify “sport.”

3. The square-cornered digital data panel looks out of place amid the voluptuous curves and soft materials. A soft surround with internal corner radii would be nice.

4. The manner in which the layered side treatment carries all the way around to the toe board is aesthetically pleasing and should be good for cabin quiet. Not that electrics are noisy.

5. Likewise, the diagonal pleating at 45 degrees from the seat centerline aesthetically successful, providing directional thrust visually and suggesting comfort.

6. The texture of the cockpit sidewall changes slightly at the front door cut.

7. The joining of the door side-panel upholstery coming away from the armrest to the seat cushion leaves no gaps for pens or glasses to fall into. It is an impressive detail that promises excellent comfort.

1. The rear edge of the spoiler is described by a flat band, the lower edge of which outlines the rear fascia oval encompassing the rear lamps.

2. The lower surface of that oval is in opposition to the underside of the spoiler. Well sculpted.

3. The two-bar taillights recapitulate the front-end theme and are wonderfully simple and thus elegant.

4. This hard line softens a bit toward the center of the car, but the rear panel is clearly defined.

5. Four pendant fins in the rear diffuser suggest racing intentions.

6. The bottom edge of the rear fender sweeps upward dramatically.

7. The lower profile of the sill flows upward from the rear wheel opening then turns downward to parallel the bottom edge of the cove.

8. This rib curves upward from its origin at the end of the side cove then thrusts forward into the black hole at the back end of the front fender.

[jesusvasser]

By Design: Genesis Essentia Concept

In terms of physical appearance, this flashy, highly attractive all-electric sports car is as pure a dream car as it’s possible to make. Practicality is sacrificed to style everywhere, but I suspect that was intentional. Witness the sublime all-glass roof, exquisite in profile and plan, unblemished by ordinary details like rain gutters, rearview mirrors, or windshield wipers. There’s ample structure within, but it’s all well hidden with no external manifestation. Rear-seat headroom is severely restrained, but who cares? It’s magnificent visually, and that’s certainly what was desired. Bumpers, marker lamps, license plate brackets, locks, all those real-world necessities distributed over the whole body, are simply ignored for the Essentia. Aesthetically, that’s all to the good. Practically, not so much.

When I started work for a major manufacturer 64 years ago, stylists were told by the best body engineers in the business that side windows had to be a couple of inches inward from the nominal body surfaces, and they had to be flat because curved windows were too expensive to even think about. But we could sketch and factories could make extreme wraparound windshields just two decades after the first curved windshield in a production car (1934 Chrysler Airflow Imperial).

Ten years after we were told it was unthinkable, curved side glass was featured on 1964 Ramblers. Curved glass, later generalized throughout the industry, was still set in from the ideal surface, though. Engineers couldn’t do flush glass, or so they thought, until Audi showed the way 20 years later. So maybe a lot of what we see here will be with us sooner than we expect.

In fact, perhaps we should consider the Essentia as the Car of Tomorrow (though it is not fully autonomous), because many of its deviations from today’s normal practices could become standard soon. Consider its lack of regulation-height bumpers and the fact that the rear spoiler is vulnerable to damage from truck front ends. Bumpers will be unnecessary if self-driving cars all but eliminate crashes, and as more of the total human-driven fleet becomes computer-aided, even those cars will (probably) stop themselves before they hit anything. But that has no bearing on the fleet on the road today, many of them half of a century old and totally without driver aids.

So we’ll just get rid of them. Older (and not very old, at that), primarily diesel cars are being restricted and soon might be banned outright in many European cities, including Mercedes-Benz’s home town of Stuttgart. Someday soon we Americans may find our cherished early Mustangs, Camaros, and their ilk banished from urban areas, too. If that happens, in-town fender-benders will become rare indeed. But that doesn’t mean we’ll all travel in bland, characterless pods. Instead, many of tomorrow’s cars—like this one—can, and probably will, be gorgeous objects precisely because they’ll be impervious to (or at least unthreatened by) traffic damage, if not to acts of God. But electronic protection won’t stop falling trees or rising flood waters. Not yet, anyway.

Worth Noting: The images here are not retouched photographs. They’re not photos at all, actually, but instead computer-generated renderings, made from the same data set that formed the tooling for the body panels.

1. The lower lip of the nose, derived from the lower corner air scoops, is really nicely modeled. Why those big air inlets are there at all is another question.

2. This hard line defines the separation of external lower body surfaces and the bubble canopy roof from the interior panels of the complex front end, with its transparencies allowing a look at the front suspension components.

3. The glass extension of the windshield, which might nominally be considered the hood, is depressed from the principal envelope, dropping down sharply behind the grille, which is itself set behind the triangular main air inlet.

4. This elegant crease represents the fender profile and disappears in the rear deck in the same way it rises from the body skin here.

5. You get a clear impression of the depth of the side indentation in this view. There is a passage from the front corner inlets to the leading edge of the side cove.

6. It’s hard to believe that these two tiny light bars are capable of providing adequate headlight illumination, but LEDs and computer-controlled reflectors are able to do amazing things today.

7. The main blade of the lower lip runs into the corner inlet; a separate blade finishes the fender form behind it. Beautiful modeling, but any aerodynamic benefit is not discussed.

8. Three Layers back, this textured grille closes off the part you can see.

9. The nicely modulated triangular inlet shape, with a softly curved upper bar and a pair of kinked straight sections joined by a nice radius at the bottom, makes a pleasant composition.

10. Just behind is a parenthesis-shaped grille frame with a single horizontal bar running the full width and a pair of bars above the outer ends. It’s all a little complicated.

1. The entire roof shape is elegantly aerodynamic, a perfect fastback profile.

2. The rear-seat headrests are visible and suggest this cabin is meant for two adults and two children—not two couples.

3. It might have been good to have a little more rise in the fender profile over the rear wheels, but this is smooth and subtly graceful, hard to fault.

4. Back up to a wall, and it’s the spoiler trailing edge that will touch, not the nominal bumper strike face.

5. The curve at the rear of the door is superb, though the front door cut is unusually convoluted. Door length is exceptionally long, tough for access in tight quarters.

6. A curiosity is the ending of the upper side lamp so that a line tangent to the two light blades is not parallel to the panel edge behind them.

7. The intricate wheels are a visual mixture of old-fashioned wires and thin-ribbed alloy designs, milled from solid billets. Exceptionally impressive objects, however made.

8. A nice bladelike nose leans rearward both above and below the strong peak line derived from the lamps. No bumper protection at all for this dramatic concept car.

1. The sharp crease on the front fender peak carries on all the way past the end of the roof glazing.

2. The subtle hard line generated by the leading edge of the hole in the top of the nose carries all the way around the car.

3. The fluidity of the glass “hood” flowing up into the windshield can be appreciated in this high rear view.

4. A particularly nice detail is the small, flat band described by the hard line on the nose that is just a bit behind the intersection of the backlight and the painted skin, making a slight—very slight—break in the fastback profile.

5. Another reasonably hard line defines the break from fastback profile to full-width rear spoiler.

6. The central round-bottom V-shaped feature occupies some space below the oval indent described by the spoiler edge, above, and the diffuser surface tapering forward and down.

7. The upper edge of the diffuser panel runs below the nominal bottom of the body, leaving a gap so the diffuser seems to be completely detached.

8. The side cove, very much like that on 1956-62 Corvette C1 models, has no trim outlining its shape but does have a rib to catch the light that runs from behind the rear door cut into the big front fender outlet just ahead of the door.

1. Thumbwheels in the spokes are practical. Someone has seen a Tesla Model 3, it would appear.

2. The fat, leather-covered steering wheel rim looks sharp and is flattened at the bottom to signify “sport.”

3. The square-cornered digital data panel looks out of place amid the voluptuous curves and soft materials. A soft surround with internal corner radii would be nice.

4. The manner in which the layered side treatment carries all the way around to the toe board is aesthetically pleasing and should be good for cabin quiet. Not that electrics are noisy.

5. Likewise, the diagonal pleating at 45 degrees from the seat centerline aesthetically successful, providing directional thrust visually and suggesting comfort.

6. The texture of the cockpit sidewall changes slightly at the front door cut.

7. The joining of the door side-panel upholstery coming away from the armrest to the seat cushion leaves no gaps for pens or glasses to fall into. It is an impressive detail that promises excellent comfort.

1. The rear edge of the spoiler is described by a flat band, the lower edge of which outlines the rear fascia oval encompassing the rear lamps.

2. The lower surface of that oval is in opposition to the underside of the spoiler. Well sculpted.

3. The two-bar taillights recapitulate the front-end theme and are wonderfully simple and thus elegant.

4. This hard line softens a bit toward the center of the car, but the rear panel is clearly defined.

5. Four pendant fins in the rear diffuser suggest racing intentions.

6. The bottom edge of the rear fender sweeps upward dramatically.

7. The lower profile of the sill flows upward from the rear wheel opening then turns downward to parallel the bottom edge of the cove.

8. This rib curves upward from its origin at the end of the side cove then thrusts forward into the black hole at the back end of the front fender.

[itsworn]

10 Ways to Prep For a Paint Job While Saving Money!

If an outside shop is painting your car, you can make the next step smoother—and less expensive!

When it comes time to pass off your car to paint, there’s no shame in outsourcing the work if the cost/benefit analysis doesn’t skew in the favor of investing in professional-level tools and equipment to paint it yourself. That said, you can set your body and paint specialists up for success that will not only bring you the best results for your buck but also ensure your project will be kept within budget and timeline. We sat down with Geoff Gates of Alloy Motors in Oakland, California, to grab some of his tips and tricks on making life easier for your paint-and-body crew.

No. 1: A Grease Pencil Saves Paint

One of the most unassuming headaches a painter can deal with is chemical bleed-through from permanent-marker ink. The ink tends to work down into the pores of the metal, contaminating the base material through both priming and paint—often even after the marks have been ground away. Grease pencils write over any surface, but they can be easily cleaned away with your typical selection of degreasers.

No. 2: Go Easy On It!

When bringing down a car to bare metal, you want to use the least-aggressive methods possible so that you have less work in prep. Case in point: Geoff recommends against grinding wheels or even flap discs. “The deeper the scratch that you leave, the more work we’ll need to do to clean it up,” he reminded us. When you think about the entire paint process, you’re getting your gloss from the smooth top surface of the clear, but every step below it is essentially a game of removing the roughness of the last step, from body filling and priming to color sanding. Wire wheels are great for cutting through paint and filler without leaving deep scratches in the raw metal. Some rough surface texture is needed to allow filler to adhere, but the small canyons left behind by grinding wheels and discs could work their way up through to the color coat after the paint dries and shrinks.

No. 3: Bring It Assembled

Panel gaps are one of the first things people look at on a newly completed project. With certain colors, they’re about as much of a faux pas as an unzipped fly when panels are misaligned. While there are certain jobs that may necessitate the removal of body parts, it’s recommended that you bring in a project with its major panels as assembled as possible. If the body had perfect gaps before, this allows the body shop to reference and document the adjustments (shims, bolt locations, and so on) used to get the panels back into their happy places. Bad panel gaps can also leave context clues for other problems, such as crash damage or a fatigued door hinge and latch panel. Additionally, for paints such as metallics and candies, it’s necessary to have the panels attached—or at least in their relative positions—while spraying. “Also, don’t throw anything away!” Geoff mentioned. “Even if a panel is thrashed and rusted, it may be something that’s impossible to find again. We may have to save that beat-up part.”

No. 4: Trim Removal

To save a few bucks on labor hours, trim removal and reinstallation is one of the easiest jobs you can do yourself. While it helps to have the right tools, many pieces of trim just need gentle, creative prying to come off. Be sure to bag and tag all hardware (clips and screws), and store the delicate trim in a safe location. Headlight bezels, light buckets, and badges are all things that can be easily removed at home to save labor hours in the shop.

No. 5: Buy vs. Build on a Budget

We live in the golden age of aftermarket parts. It’s more affordable than ever to purchase custom parts, and a wealth of that market is devoted to low-cost fabrication parts. These are near-finished pieces, like wheeltubs or transmission tunnels, that come preformed and fit (oftentimes) with minimal trimming. The reason an outfit like ABC Performance can sell a trans tunnel ($175, as seen here) cheaper than what many shops would charge to fabricate one is that they’re set up to mass produce their panels instead of creating a one-off piece from scratch, which takes more time to produce. If you know that certain sheetmetal modifications may be needed, it’s worth looking into these solutions.

No. 6: Use the Best Stuff For Key Areas

When it comes to things that are more vital to the finished quality of your project, this is where Geoff recommends talking with your body shop to make use of the right parts. Things like your sheetmetal supplier can save labor hours on the fitment. Using the right combination of suspension and brake components so they fit without modification is another area. Asking your builder about known wheel and tire fitments that work on your model of car is also one of the biggest examples. Especially if your body shop specializes in a particular application, their suppliers may save many headaches in parts sourcing.

If you plan on doing any of the paint prep yourself (spraying high-build primer or block-sanding), consult with your painter to see what products they’d prefer you use for their paint options. This is not an area to cheap-out on, as the products you use will tend to reflect the durability of your finish. Sticking with name brands like Axalta, BASF, DuPont, House of Kolor, or PPG (among others) will yield long-lasting results against road grime and sunshine.

No. 7: Cut and Buff

One area where you can save a few bucks is in post-painting processes, like wet-sanding and buffing out the final finish. The process itself is not that difficult. Wet-sanding is mostly labor intensive, as nearly every square inch of the body needs to be sanded through various grits (starting at 1,000 and working up to 2,000) before being buffed with progressively lighter compounds. Like we mentioned before, each step of bodywork and paint is removing the scratches from the last step, and the same goes as you knock down any natural orange peel to give the job that glass-surface finish. With very little investment in materials, you can save money by working slowly and not overworking hard edges and high spots.

No. 8: Trim Tape Is Insurance

Once you’re reinstalling the trim you removed earlier, it’s important to tape up painted surfaces around where you’re working to safeguard against accidents or bad fitment of parts. Rolls of painter’s masking tape (anything but the beige household junk) can save you a lot of hassle and money in touch-ups. “Why would you needlessly risk the thousands you’ve just put in to paint to save 7 bucks?” Geoff quipped. Especially with heavy pieces like bumpers and grilles, it’s cheap insurance.

No. 9: Talk About the Bill

Some of the wildest horror stories we hear about come when a shop hands a bill to its customer after weeks or months of work. Having clear lines of communication and boundaries of budget are important things to look for in a shop. When you’re looking to spend as much as it does on labor and materials, you want to be sure you’re getting what you expect in the timeframe you’re promised. Going into a process like bodywork, which peels back the layers on your car’s history, you might find surprises hiding under what looks like decent prior paint, but it’s important to find a shop that will communicate these discoveries so you can stay within the projected budget and timeline. And while you’ll almost always be given an estimate and not a quote, working with established businesses means you stand a better chance of staying on budget. You want to avoid someone who might disappear with the car for several months, then provide a vague, one-line invoice for your hard-earned cash.

No. 10: Do Your Own Patch Work—Here’s How!

We wouldn’t leave you without teaching some new hands-on skill, so we’ll tap into some easy patch panel work. Small patch panels become great practice for larger sections down the road (such as quarter-panels and doorskins), and excellent results are more dependent on patience than equipment.

Step 1

Starting with a wire wheel or DA sander, knock down the surface to bare metal so you can get a clean view of what material you have to work with, and prepare it for welding and priming.

Step 2

Using masking tape, create a patch panel that is just big enough to remove these small rust spots (often caused by rock chips or rust-through from moisture inside the quarter panel) without creating too much extra work. The tape template can be trimmed to size with a razor blade.

Step 3

Once you’re happy with the template’s shape, spray a light mist of paint onto the work area and let it dry for about 10 minutes (or until the paint has sufficiently dried). When you pull your tape template, the overspray will create a perfect cutting-line silhouette.

Step 4

Using a cut-off wheel, carefully chop out the cancerous sheetmetal. It’s wiser to cut the hole a tad small and use a grinding disc to gently work up to your masking lines to ensure a more precise fit between your patch panel and the windowed sheetmetal.

Step 5

Thoroughly clean the inner sheetmetal with brushes and compressed air before coating everything you can reach in rust converter. This will cease internal rot and create a weldable, primable surface.

Step 6

While you wait for the rust converter to work its chemistry (waiting up to 24 hours is ideal), transfer your tape template to your sheetmetal and cut out your new patch panel. As before, it’s better to rough cut and then slowly work up to your final shape.

Step 7

Bend, tweak, and trim your patch until it fits smoothly with the natural curves of the panel you are repairing. You want to keep a minimal gap around the two pieces, less than 1/8 inch. Before tack-welding, spray weld-through primer on the back side of the patch and inside your body panel as a final layer of corrosion prevention.

Step 8

Begin placing tacks around the patch, working in a loose pattern that spreads the heat around the joint as you work (think of it like the bolt pattern of a cylinder head or wheel). Every few laps, Geoff will cool the area down with a blast of compressed air to help prevent the panel from warping significantly. Keep stacking tacks around the edge until the gap has been filled.

Step 9

A flapper disc is first used to knock the welds down just short of the rest of the sheetmetal before switching to a less-aggressive sanding disc. The welds are then brought down to the sheetmetal and feathered into the surrounding material. A DA sander on 80-grit will finish out the job. Any pinholes left behind by the stacks of tacks can be tacked again and reground to fill.

Step 10

From here, the hard part is done. Depending on the result, you may need to hammer or pull the repaired area to get it in just the right position, but with clean metal you can be assured that your money spent in paint won’t go to waste.

The post 10 Ways to Prep For a Paint Job While Saving Money! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/10-ways-prep-paintjob-saving-money/ via IFTTT