Restoration of my fin tail Mercedes Benz

[Xulfiqar]

what about the smoke gray color on the inside of the boot lid and cavity?

[sawan345]

Some more pics from this morning. The last one is of the "finished" article !

MAshALLAH good going
Finally brought back to home now

[VEEeight]

no its not the color, its only shininess, there should be more shininess. Or maybe you haven't yet applied the top shiny coat?

All coats have been applied. The paint will b "cut", compounded and polished arnd jun 15th, to reveal the "depth" of the final finish.

[VEEeight]

Mashallah looking good..:)..it will look great after the Compound polish..

Thankyou very much am very hopeful that it will. It's taken a LOT of effort, not to mention the expense! Ensuring that the materials used were of the right standards was the major headache here.

[VEEeight]

what about the smoke gray color on the inside of the boot lid and cavity?

am not too sure just yet! Will look arnd and then decide if it should be that or matt black.

[VEEeight]

MAshALLAH good going
Finally brought back to home now

Yes finally:) now starts the fun part of putting it all together! 7 months so far and probably not much change will be left out of the next 2 before it can be loosely described as "done" !

[Kiki091]

Thankyou very much am very hopeful that it will. It's taken a LOT of effort, not to mention the expense! Ensuring that the materials used were of the right standards was the major headache here.

I can totally understand that as i hv gone through a restoration process with my W115..Inshallah all your efforts will pay of..nd i'll love to have a ride in it..

[VEEeight]

I can totally understand that as i hv gone through a restoration process with my W115..Inshallah all your efforts will pay of..nd i'll love to have a ride in it..

Yes, I know about your W115, have seen the thread and posted on it earlier this month. This model in respectable condition is now very rare and you are lucky to have one! As for wanting a ride in the Fintail, BELIEVE me I would love one too!

[Xulfiqar]

am not too sure just yet! Will look arnd and then decide if it should be that or matt black.

Its actually called smoke gray in the MB parts catalog and is more gray than black. Any paint shop which has a standox or glasurit shade card will have it. Very common colour - it would literally say interior panel paint or something similar. The factory painted it that way too.

[margallar]

Xulfiqar i notice that you usually recommend glasurit or standox, what would you say about nippon paint (made in pakistan), a friend of mine works in that company and i think he can help me arrange non adulterated paint of that brand

[Xulfiqar]

I like the result of standox and glasurit - and not just buying paint coat. Their whole shabbang is what is needed to get proper results. Not panda brand chinese flower primer, filler etc and standox paint. Refinishing is a very hard and tedious job - think of it as car detailing x 1000. Just correctly sanding is quite hard too, I had learnt a number of techniques and got a pro photographer freind to help me with using light and reflection to see contours and problems.

Nippon paints are good too, just a matter of choice tho and the reason I recommended it above was the availability of the smoke gray shade. You can easily make the same shade in Nippon too if you had access to the mixing chart.

[margallar]

lets say a guy wants to get his car repainted but with as little orange peel as possible, what can he do? (apart from the usual sanding, compounding etc, i mean what at the prep and spraying stage), my car might just get repainted so i want to know what i can do to achieve a beautiful finish and one that is atleast as durable as the oem paint on lets say a toyota vehicle

[Xulfiqar]

the sanding of the base is critical and application of the paint itself, Long smooth strokes with a very BIG compressor that has atleast a 3 stage filtration process is mandatory. Not the little rackety item most Pakistani painters have.

It ensures no moisture, no pulsing and even spraying.

Sanding should be helped with a pepper coat of black or gray - the peppering is done so see whether a surface is raised or dimpled. Rubbing of the pepper coat will show a higher surface, which needs hammering correction. You cannot eliminate orange peel 100% unless you dip the car in paint. But most shops make sure to get the least possible (finest) of it then polish it out.

[margallar]

lol...i guess i am saved from a bad one, there is a guy who works in heavy repair in a car factory (he repaints the areas of new cars having paint defects), we had him spray the underside of the car, well he did it in our garage and the cylinder with his compressor was leaking, we were considering having him repaint our car which he said he could do in our home garage (though i was insisting on a booth) . khair a paint booth can be rented but i guess he will need to get his equipment repaired. how many maximum coats of clear are possible, id like it thick so i can have it sanded to perfection, he claims that at honda they spray 2 coats

[VEEeight]

Its actually called smoke gray in the MB parts catalog and is more gray than black. Any paint shop which has a standox or glasurit shade card will have it. Very common colour - it would literally say interior panel paint or something similar. The factory painted it that way too.

Okay, am not going to labour on this , " smoke grey" it will be

[BackToCivicFaiez]

lol...i guess i am saved from a bad one, there is a guy who works in heavy repair in a car factory (he repaints the areas of new cars having paint defects), we had him spray the underside of the car, well he did it in our garage and the cylinder with his compressor was leaking, we were considering having him repaint our car which he said he could do in our home garage (though i was insisting on a booth) . khair a paint booth can be rented but i guess he will need to get his equipment repaired. how many maximum coats of clear are possible, id like it thick so i can have it sanded to perfection, he claims that at honda they spray 2 coats

wow...thats too little paint...

I think 4 coats including base coat and clear coat is "standard" on decent cars. which leaves two color coats, so maybe he's right. otherwise, you can paint as many coats as your pocket can handle...do 5000 if you can. several inches bullet proof paint lol

[margallar]

i was talking about the clear coat, not the base coat and primer

[VEEeight]

I guess no one has ever said, a resto is an easy task. Looks like doing the interior is going to b a major hassle mainly due to lack of availability of the right materials. My first preference is calf leather ideally in any of the several color options I have in mind, but availabilty is limited and the cost overly prohibitive.....unless i come across cut pieces or damaged hides.....which, to be fair, HAS happened before. i hope it will again! The local stuff is all glitzy to start with but then the color can start to peel off!! Leatherite is not an option due its non porous nature altho is available in scores of shades... The other option is velvet. The pic shows samples of fairly typical, mundane stuff, but the tan item is leather itself. Am getting visions of an externally finished motor with nothing inside:(

sigh......

[VEEeight]

Not much progress to "report" as was myself away. The electrician is not here either, my mind is blank about what to do about the interior, have a sort of "writers block" about it! Meanwhile, work has started on buffing of the chrome trim etc. The only good thing coming out of this forced pause is the hardening of the paint. Another week or so and will then start to cut, compound and polish it. The other issue is the tyres. I need 205/70 R 14s and whilst at one time, it was a common enough size, now it's not! So have decided to leave it till after the test driving stage in case I need to upgrade to 15in rims.

[VEEeight]

SOME work is being done The glassware on the rear right door has been refitted (using new but non original rubber channels....) as has the door handle and the chrome "boomerang" aft of the door. Since the taking of this picture, the right front and left rear door have also recd their respective glass and quarter windows. More to be done today.