1948 Triumph Roadster Supercharged plus other stuff…

I'm gutted for you about the accidental damage and can relate to exactly how you must be feeling. I know how I and I'm sure many others on here have had exactly the same experience, painstakingly doing every job to the highest standard possible, being delighted with the result only to ding it right at the end. The hard thing is to accept it and move on but that is what has to be done. I can certainly understand that you had to take time out before getting back to it.

We are all in awe of the standard of your work and I'm sure that by the time you have finished the repair will be invisible to everyone except perhaps you because you know where to look. Keep up the good work and thank you for sharing the journey with us.

Best regards

John

2K isn't fixable?

Not sure what you mean there. But get yourself some 'fade out thinners' in a rattle can and carefully waft a squirt over the area after blowing it in. Keep can at least 300mm from the body and only a little waft is enough. This melts the new paint into the old and can leave an invisible repair.

I've touched in various parts of the front of my car from stonechips over the years and it's invisible. It can take a month or two for fresh paint to blend with old, (fresh paint always looks glossier than old) but as yours is fresh it should blend immediately.

Hope the blend works ok this time - yes thats the stuff.

Engine is looking super smart!

Spent most of today mounting the front guards on a rotisserie.
Just the engine stand one. Same as I used for the guards and doors of the XK.
Doesn’t look like it should take the better part of a day, but it did.




They will be much better to work on now that they’re held nice and firmly.

And spot primed the two halves of the bonnet.





And since this post is a bit light on pics, here’s my little mate, complete with collar of shame!




Thanks.

Spent the day alternating between this instrument of torture:



Taking off the topcoat and most of the filler beneath it.
I’m using 40 grit to just go as far as the metal.
Then I’ll give it a coat of epoxy and do my version of bodywork on top of that. Just trying to reduce the total thickness of the finish. There is so much filler on this thing, it’s hard to believe.


And wet sanding/polishing the body.

Which is now half done.
To be honest, there isn’t really much area there.

Very pleased with the progress though.
I’m wet sanding with 1200, then 1500 and finally 2000 grits.
Then polishing with a medium foam pad and 3M compound on the random orbital.
And so far, I’ve not rubbed through.
But I did put plenty of paint on it…

And my little drama with the windscreen surround v hoist has become invisible.







Maybe that blending stuff works, just not on red paint!

Paint work is so much more enjoyable when it’s going to plan!

One of the guards is pretty much done. The other is about a quarter of the way there.

They are huge, a lot of area.





So, heaps of dust.
Once I have them both ready to epoxy, I’ll have a clean up. The dust from that point on will be manageable.

On the subject of unwanted dirt etc. I ran the fans on the inlet filter first thing this morning, as a test.
Nice dry freshly painted panels in the booth, and after a few minutes of fans on, no nasties on the ( hard ) paint.
So I don’t know what the cause of the contamination was.
The panels are still in there, so I might run a longer test tomorrow. I really want to know.


Thanks.



Edited to add.

Triumphs rule!    4 on the first page!

Made some more dust this morning.
Both guards now have the filler reduced to a reasonable thickness.
I’m still gobsmacked by how much these 'pros' use.

I welded up a couple of holes where 1980s sealed beam spotlights had been mounted. They were ugly lights and there’s enough going on at the front of this car to not need them.
Go back to the pic at the start of the thread and you’ll see what I mean.

Here’s where:





That’s 5mm of filler.
Which obviously had to come off before I could weld up the hole.
At least the heat gun saves on dust…

So once I had finished making dust, I had a clean up.
By that I mean I swept up the dust within 10 feet of the epicentre and then used a leaf blower to move most of the rest out the door.

Once the place was inhabitable, I started on a couple of repairs.

Welded a piece in here.






And I discovered some laciness.





When I eventually found a marker that worked, I decided to replace this bit.

Which had been covered by the filler. That’s being lit from behind in an attempt to make it show.

The steps involved.

Card template transferred to 20#.





Roughly cut. I thought it might be better to stretch the return, rather than the larger side.





Then hammered the return over in the vise.
Trial fit, shows promise…





A bit of a fettle and it’s getting close.





And the state of play atm.
Nice clean shed.





Easter Sunday, time for an ale!

Cheers.

Nice work - as always. 🙂

I have seen similar “pro” work when restoring my GT6. Vast thicknesses of filler (sometimes even lead then filler) covering dents that could easily have been knocked out and finished with a skim of glaze. Also vast thicknesses of bog covering untreated rot and disguising misaligned panels.

“Panel beaters” who are actually bog sculptors with almost zero metal-working skills 😡

Yep, some of these 'pros' should be nicknamed Michelangelo.
But they should not be called 'pros'.

Not much to report today.

Gave the guards a spray and wipe with wag remover.
Then a quick sand with 180 grit and sprayed polyester filler over the topsides.
This is really just to fill the sanding scratches from the 40 grit I used to remove the old topcoat and some of the bulk filler.
Most of it will be sanded off.





This revealed one small crack and a pair of tiny holes that I'd missed.
Welded them up, but didn’t get any pics.

Had planned to sand them and the get a coat of epoxy, but it didn’t happen.

Did get them mostly sanded and skimmed some filler over my repairs.

But I underestimated the size of these things. And had forgotten how hard Upol Reface is.
They’re huge and it’s taking longer than expected. Such is life.

More tomorrow.

Thanks.

Didn’t get much done on the Triumph yesterday.
It was threatening rain, so I got the chainsaw out.
Cut down one of three olive trees in the citrus orchard. They were planted by the previous owner and are just in the wrong place. So will become firewood.
Seeing I had the saw going, there were some dead wattle trees around the house that needed to be removed.
So cut them off at the ground, then loaded them on to a trailer behind the quad bike and carted them away to the spot down the paddock where vegetation waste goes.

Then it started to rain enough that I could say ‘enough' and go to my shed…

Made a good start on colour sanding and polishing the body.

Which was finished by lunchtime today.






Very pleased with the outcome, glad to see that I’m not actually getting less good at this!
Of course there are imperfections.
But not many would spot them, because there are only a few, and thankfully they are tiny.
So I think I’ll call it good enough, and get on with it.

And my good wife helped remove the rotisserie, then we lowered it back onto the chassis, so now it’s like this.









Was going to cut the support frame out this afternoon, but thought I might sleep on that.
It’s a big job to put it back in place, should the body have to come back off.



Thanks.