Hey Vettfixr,i was looking at your web site and wanted to click on the link for Prime &Paint and the link is not active. Is there something wrong with it or am I doing something wrong? Anyway, I am planning on spraying my car black Memorial Weekend. I have done a ton of block sanding and shaping of the car and think that I have it pretty straight. Is there any advice that you can give me or things to watch out for about painting a vette black since it want hide much of anything? Also I am planning on using the ppg bc\cc is this what you used? Any other advice or info is much appreciated. BTW beautiful car!!!! 
_______
Thank's,
Wade
1971 convertible.
I just haven't had the time to put all the things I've wanted to on the site. From your post I'm assuming you already have the car in primer. One of the biggest problems I found the first time around (I've painted mine twice, but that's another story) was sand scratch swelling. You may not have this problem with bc/cc but it's definitely an issue with lacquer. When primer is sanded there are scratches left in the primer and painting over them causes the solvents to make them swell. This shows up as scratch marks in the topcoat which have to be color sanded out. I've found that sanding the primer with 1000 grit wet or dry minimizes this and still gives enough bite for the lacquer to stick well. The next problem was cracks in the bonding strips. I tried once to fill these with body filler but it quick failed. The best way to get rid of this problem is to V grind the seam where the panels join and fiberglass them together. I built the fiberglass up so that when it was sanded there was no body filler needed. I understand that some of the new catalized fillers are better but I prefer to go with no bodyfiller at all. Another tip is that when you sand the primer you should use the longest board you can maneuver. This results in extremely flat panels. If you use small sanding blocks you don't get the leveling effect that a long board gives. If you want a good approximation of how straight you've gotten your panels just wipe them with Prep Sol or Pre Kleeno. While they are wet you will see how straight the panels are because the solvent shines. As far as the painting goes you want to put down even strips of paint with the gun overlapping each pass by 50%. The trick is to go at a speed that allows enough material to flow but not so much that you will get sags and runners. Lacquer is very forgiving in this sense but I've never sprayed bc/cc so I can't give you a comparison. I've heard from other people that bc/cc goes on in much the same way as lacquer. Make sure you have sufficient light to see what you're doing because there's a fine line between flowing just enough and too much. You have to be able to see the spray pattern well to be able to adjust your speed. Try to get even coverage but remember that you won't get the whole car evenly covered in one pass so don't try to accomplish that by putting too much paint on at once. You probably will need 2 or 3 coats to get even coverage. Once you get the basecoat down and you're spraying the clear try to give the edges of the fenders, the edge on the sail panels and the front and rear edge of the body (next to the bumpers) a little extra clear. Also hit the arch of the wheelwells. This is because when you are done you will probably color sand the clear to get it perfectly smooth and then buff it. If you don't have a little extra margin on these edges it's easy to go through them with the sandpaper or buffer. I usually give the edges 2 coats of clear first before I spray the full coats of clear on the car. One thing I can't stress enough is that if you are spraying a catalyzed paint, like bc/cc, you MUST use a fresh air respirator. You are putting your health at risk if you just use a cannister type respirator. The catalyzed paints are extremely dangerous and can make dead people if you don't respect them. Please read the last sentence over again. Once you have the car sprayed you will have to decide if you want to color sand it or leave it along. I recommend color sanding because it separates the good paint jobs from the really outstanding ones. Because your bc/cc paint dries by a catalyst you can color sand it the day after you spray it. Lacquer requires a much longer drying time because it dries by evaporation, sometimes taking a month or longer before all the shrinking occurs. I've heard it recommended that color sanding be done within 2 days of spraying because the longer the paint sits the harder it gets and the harder it is to sand. Might be urban legend but it makes sense on some level. I usually color sand by starting with 1000 grit and then going to 2000 grit for the final pass. When you start sanding you should use a soft rubber sanding block like 3M sells and get a sleeve of each grit of paper you're going to use (you will go through a lot). Always sand in one direction and go lightly. You just want to take the high spots off the paint. As you sand you should use either a towel or a squeegee to wipe away the water. Once dry you will see a matt finish on the paint. You will also see shiny spots, which are the low spots in the paint. Keep sanding until you have a uniform matt finish with no shiny spots and then you will have a smooth level surface. When you finish with the 2000 grit paper the surface will almost be back to a semi gloss finish because the paper is quite fine. When the entire car is sanded give it a wash and get ready to buff. You can buff by hand if you're a masochist or you can learn to use a power buffer. I've done both and the power buffer is the way to go. You will start buffing with a fine buffing compound like 3M Imperial Microfine buffing compound. You apply this with a wool cutting pad (3m also makes these and they are called a Super Buff) to an area about 1 1/2 ft. square. Apply the compound to the pad and put the pad on the car before you start the buffer. Move the pad around a little first so you don't spray everything in the area with compound. Start the buffer and buff at around 1000 rpm. Keep the buffer flat and moving back and forth and overlap each stroke by 50%. Keep buffing until the compound is almost dry and you see the shine come up. You may have to repeat this step more than once to remove all the sanding scratches. Don't try to buff at too fast a speed or press too hard on the buffer. You can overheat the paint and damage the finish like this. Take your time and let the machine do the work. When you come up to an edge let the pad move away from the edge and not into it. The safest way to buff edges is by hand and then cover them with masking tape so you don't burn through the paint. Once you've completed buffing the car you will probably see swirl marks. To remove these wash the car and then apply 3M Swirl and haze remover with an orbital buffer. I use a Porter Cable buffer and I think it's the best I've ever used but you can use a lower priced unit and get similar results. Use a foam pad and apply the swirl and haze remover to the same size areas. The swirl and haze remover is very gentle so it may take some time to get the finish absolutely swirl free but when you're done you should be able to shave by it. Once you've applied the swirl and haze remover you should wash the car again. All the washes I've talked about should be done with water and a little dawn dishwashing liquid. It removes any dirt and grease from each step so you don't damage the paint with debris from the previous step. At this point in time the crazies come out with religious ferver touting their favorite polishing products. I can tell you from experience that Meguiars products are very good and I used them for over 10 years. You can use their No. 7 Show Car Glaze followed by No. 26 High Tech Yellow wax and you will have an excellent shine. The only problem with Meguiars products, and most others, is that they only last for a few weeks and must then be applied again. If you go to the Car care section you will hear from the Zaino zealots. Don't discount what they say. I switched to Zaino last year and will never go back. After two coats the shine was as good as the best I've ever experienced with any other product including Meguiars, Zymol, etc. The big deal here is that it lasts. I've let it go for months and a pass with a california car duster and a quick wipe with Zaino detailer brings it back to just waxed appearance. It also doesn't attract dust as much as the others do and it doesn't leave that white crap in every crevice of the car. It's that good. Before you seal the paint with anything I would let it dry for at least a month to make sure all the solvents are dry. If you trap them in the paint you may cause failures prematurely. Well, that was pretty long winded wasn't it. Didn't mean to go on that way but it's a topic that requires a lot of attention to detail in order to be successful. If you want to go to a good paint coatings website go to 
Nice response
