Quicky and Sanding techniques explained (+ picture for P&S moc)

Still trying to make the most of good weather and the good light till late. Took the plunge last night and got the nail punch and hammer out .... yep I was gingerly wacking the roof. There where some high spots from panel beating it that I had to admit defeat and push them back down to get the roof level. Well worth it as this evenings sanding went much better and I have even started to go back over the rear pillars, yes this is the start of me going back over the car with a more experienced sanding technique, so the vast amount of hours sanding have no been completely waisted!
Yikes, this seems to be really worth while so deffinitaly going back over the whole care. Little sigh.

 So far the technique that is working well for me (there are plenty of different ways so do experiment) seems to be; For early stages of panel corection/dents and rust pits or panel repair, don't be shy with the filler as going back over it just drags it out longer and do try to keep it a bit smooth as this should make your mixed up filler go further especially as your going to sand a fair bit straight back off any way.
Sand paper 40g - 180g is for shaping, above that is primer sanding if using filler primer, if your doing normal primer us 250-600g before priming. When you get to 1000g DO NOT jump up more than 500g incriments, you can go up to 2000g before doing colour coat. Then if there is impefections in the paint use 2500 - 3500 ready for gloss coat and use a buffer to level/flattern the gloss coat.
Sanding pattern. Now this is super important but results are also affected by the size of your sanding block to the size of the panel as you can be sanding the main roof or a door pillar. Yep this is something you just work out! To give you some idea I am now using blocks at 140mm, 300mm & 450mm all about 40mm wide. The short block is used for super tight curves (corners of the roof as I have no roof gutter), the top corners of the rear window (a odd set of multiple angles and curves going on there) and the corners of the rear valance but I have only used 180g as 80 takes to much off to quickly. The 300 block is used with 80 & 180g really good on the middle of the roof (more opposing curves than you think) rear A pillars,  door pillars and rear vallance also some early shaping above the fronmt & rear window openings, The 450 block was really good for final shaping above all windows, the 4 sides of the roof, and the wings this was only used with no lower than 180g.
I have not bought or used flexible sanding blocks at all, as long as you sand in a Z pattern  as you can see bellow, the black lines going forward and the red on the return. I was doing this 4-6 times then would change direction to go back over the spot again, this is my way of speeding up as the profesional  worked more in a box shape doing the retun imediatley but I could not get a good rythm.

This does work on all curves and is amazing at showing the low spots, so you may have to get the filler back out to level off, but this is the time to go back over it as many times as you like with the quality of the paint job being 90% about prep. For the blended arches the block sanding does take a bit longer and I found slowly building up the shape and sanding multiple time easier to hold a even shape, but I was going over some one elses work not starting from scratch.

Whilst sanding I noticed 2 holes on the wheel arch next to the seat ?
I remember there only being a vinal covering going over it ...... so any ideas what they are for ? Seat belt anchor ? but why 2 holes ?
Verdict just in off a forum ... roll cage mounts, booo thats no help ! Rubbish will have to make them disapear then if I don't want road water inside.

body sanding techniques

After a big session of self doubt, I got my self stuck into researching sanding again and qiuckly remembered I had no choice but to up the size/s of my sanding blocks to get close to a finish I'm happy with. So after a quick rumage through one of the sheds I not only found some lovely blocks I also found a roll of 180g sand paper, giving me both 80g & 180g on a roll so I'm no longer held back by the size of paper/sanding block, I could now get on with some serious (level & even) shaping.
Yay.
After a few sessions out there the results are really shaping up (bum,bum ! ) Feeling much better with the roof curves as I have no roof gutter to hide behind and that dam roof is actually taking shape as well. Poor thing, that was in a really bad state at the begining and far worse than it looked in any of the pictures.
So still no pictures and probably not for a while yet, as thin as I'm getting the filler on a finished sand I still keep finding low spots.
Found out a full body prep and spray is approx 1000 hours, I felt a bit better with this knowledge as I'm expecting the time spent spraying to be only 20-30 ish hours, so I possibly still have hours to do before breaking that marker. Good job to as I still haven't even looked at the doors yet, but that is looming with the need to temp hang them and check body panel alignment then tweek that as well whilst we can.
Lastely the pace of work has changed due to being out in the open right next to a path and a shop at the end of that path. We will just say a mini is an old car and many are fond of them, so I have been told by a few! Bless, the distraction is actually welcome most of the time but doesn't speed things up any.

onto bight size work, I miss the garage

With a bad weather forcast last night I got the bonnet out to give it a good beating, as it didn't really matter if it got wet. Worked it for a good 40 min and got quite a bit of the dent out, but although it is not massive it must have been quite a good wack to get it that shape. After a while I stood back to look at the dent and the bonnet as a whole. I guess that the dent will take at least 40 min again to get it close and with the 2 sharp edges that creat the very front edge and then the retun undernieth I started to ponder how crisp the finished item is going to be. So I dug out the spare bonnet (as you do), no I had not pounced on that one as it looks like it has never had a coat of paint on it or even been used. So its shape is A1 but it has gone past golden brown to very dark mud brown with rust, the strengthening ribs undernieth are still attached and the catch mount is not bent unlike bonnet 1. With this in mind and the fact I had decided a long time ago to just get the bonnet beed blasted as I was going to chip the paint getting the dent out of bonnet 1 and there was the start of rust patches, it didn't take long to decide to change which bonnet to use. Just have to strip all the bolt on bits off bonnet 1 to put on bonnet 2.

The catch on the left does not look to bad, but it is a good 20-30 degrees off of the 90 it should be. I will take a pic of the finished beating and add it in a few days, it did rain so quickly packed up before I could take a pic.

Today with the weather being considerably better than forcast I peeled back the cover to do a bit of air bubble filling and sanding, oh yes and I had spotted a propper rough finish on one of the arches (massive sigh, as if I havn't spent enough time on the arches).

So as you can hopefully see I rolled up the sleeves and got stuck in, got the thickness of the vertical flat much more even in the centre of the arch but it still hurt a bit to be blobbing a load of filler on then getting the 80 grit paper out on it again. Still not convinced the curve is any better for it though, but there is a little bit more to finish it off.
Managed to find a load of pin prick holes to fill and sanded the passenger panel back nice and quick, the filler on the roof though is prooving bloody slow work as the primer wich is stopping any rust take hold again (big plus) is clogging the paper and leaving slight ridges when I sand the filler back. I can see that part really getting on my t#ts, getting grumpy and giving up to then be straight back out there again as I know the roof is such a big part of the percieved quality finish we all wont.
Still really unsure how good a level I'm going to reach with this body work malarky, on a finished product I have done QC for years with laquered furniture and now granite composite work tops, I can spot a fault in them so quick and others take ages to find them. I have almost no doubt I will be aware of more faults than I would like when it's finished but I just hope it will be good enough to live with. Time will tell.

First stint on the drive way

With such good weather today, I had to find some time for the mini. So after a 2 week pause to re charge from the monster pace, I had been a little hesitant to crack on with sanding the roof that I had filled but pulled off to do suspension. This might have only been about having to take both car covers off just to do some work, but a longer prep and tidy up is less time working and I have found short stints counter productive due to loosing track of the big picture whilst focusing on a small patch.
With a good 3 hours on the cards I managed to get round the roof sanding filler in air bubble holes and a couple of build up patches. Still a bit close to metal in a few places so had to make sure I had time to spray over them before packing up with rubbish weather on the cards for the next couple of days. Then went round the roof and passenger side pillars filling air bubbles and a few tiny pits around the pillar edges to get them a bit sharper, even managed to sand that lot before a quick etch prime.
Doesn't sound that much but a productive stint and the first one on the drive way (with even further to walk to get supplies), a few more stints like that and the body work should be ready for wet and dry, well and the front end to do but thats got loads of holes for grills and lights so .... well there is light at the end of the tunnel. Must panel beat the bonnet and get that to the sand blasters, sigh.