Topic: What do I paint the bottom with? (long with pictures)

[jtfx6552]

In the home stretch on the bottom of the car.

It is an October 64 Dearborn car, which near as I can tell was black on the bottom.

According to the VA Mustang Blog, and their research on a car produced a little before mine, the black was pretty darn shiny too.

Right now, mine looks good in SPI epoxy. At the risk of being attacked by SPI fans, while I love the stuff, and I know it has  UV protection in it now, I want to top coat it. Reason is, I love the stuff because it sands easily. Most epoxy sands like rocks. To me, "sands easily" could be also be called "scratches easily", which is what I have found scratching a test piece I've had in my garage for awhile that I know is fully cured, it doesn't scratch through easily, the gloss just scratches easily in to a dull mark. If that's not normal, maybe one of the SPI fans can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Here's the bottom in black SPI epoxy (not the last coat, I smoothed some stuff out and hit it again with grey. I wanted to show it in black though:



I think clear coat isn 't good for the bottom of a car, so I don't think I want to do black base and slightly dulled clear.

Maybe black single stage, but which one? I bought some Eastwood "Ceramic" chassis black, The description is just what I want, But. In the past I have found Eastwood's stuff to be more for the hobbyist, usually but not always lower priced than the pro stuff, not used by restoration professionals. Typically when trying their stuff, I haven't been that happy.

But, the description is perfect! Anyone used this stuff? How durable is it?

On another note, I want to make the car as correct as possible. The Va Mustang blog says they recreated floor pan drips with reduced epoxy. They don't say which brand. I tried to paint my test floor piece while hanging in the correct orientation, with reduced SPI black and white epoxy mixed (into a grey to also use as the base for faux galvanized "dolly" marks). Here is the test piece hanging:

Didn't work:


Unreduced almost worked, I think if I use my detail gun and narrow the paint fan, paint from further away so the air doesn't blow waves into it, I can get it to look right. This was full fan with my regular primer gun:



Thoughts appreciated.

[slingslingbinks]

Hey jtfx.

I e-mailed one of the guy's that's doing a restore on the VA Mustang blog and he told me that he takes a rattle can and over spray's the ridges and makes the drip's then paint's over the drip's.

Any black or dark color will work.  Kinda makes sense because the rattle can doesn't use air and you can slop it on easy with out blowing the paint all over like what your doing now with the air paint gun.

Hope this help's.

C-ya Scott.

[Bob Gaines]

Recent evidence on a number of cars seems to support that the color shade was not actually black but a very dark gray easily confused with black.

[Brant]

Recent evidence on a number of cars seems to support that the color shade was not actually black but a very dark gray easily confused with black.

There are at least some Dearborn cars built around this time that are definitely black.  I only say "some", because as with a lot of this stuff, there could be different variations out there. I have a June '64, August '64, and January '65  Dearborn cars here - all were definitely a fairly glossy black underneath.

On the other hand, I have seen several San Jose cars built around this time that were dark gray.

[Bob Gaines]

There are at least some Dearborn cars built around this time that are definitely black.  I only say "some", because as with a lot of this stuff, there could be different variations out there. I have a June '64, August '64, and January '65  Dearborn cars here - all were definitely a fairly glossy black underneath.

On the other hand, I have seen several San Jose cars built around this time that were dark gray.

The late 64 dated  cars that I have studied with the very dark gray paint were all SJ cars (big surprise) .

[mgmradio]

I have an unrestored Aug 64 coupe that's underside I'd light blue. Dearborn car

[slingslingbinks]

The bottom of a San Jose car is red primer.
The bottom of a Deerborn car is painted with what they call Slop. It's the previous day's paint all mixed together and sprayed on the bottom side. Sence the paint is applied using pressurized paint and no air the paint is runny and drip's off the bottom.

[CharlesTurner]

The bottom of a San Jose car is red primer.
The bottom of a Deerborn car is painted with what they call Slop. It's the previous day's paint all mixed together and sprayed on the bottom side. Sence the paint is applied using pressurized paint and no air the paint is runny and drip's off the bottom.

There are quite a few documented San Jose '65 cars with dark gray/blackish undercarriage. 

The reason for the floor pan drips is due to the paint application being done mechanically instead of by hand.

[slingslingbinks]

Tks Charles i stand corrected on the San Jose cars.

[J_Speegle]

The bottom of a San Jose car is red primer.

Depends on when the car was built but as Charles reported there is a fairly long period in 65 when a dark gray batch color was applied from the firewall rearward.

Have plenty of drip pictures from these and red oxide chot cars but no reason to post in this particular thread