Given the problems that came up yesterday, what else could possibly go wrong? Well, as with most things in life, as soon as you solve one problem, another one (or two) arises… Some of the silver pieces and the red bumper needed to be painted on multiple sides, so once one side dried, I turned them over on the newspaper and sprayed the other side. As I later found out, this was not very wise. After they dried, the first part that was painted had blank ink all over it from the newspaper, meaning I would have to hand paint over these areas after they dried.
To avoid making the same mistake again, all painting from this point forward would be done on paper towels rather than newspaper. Also, after painting the second coats, rather than leaving them outside to dry and risking the mishaps from yesterday evening, I brought ALL pieces inside once they were sprayed. I would not doubt that Bob and I got a little “high” from the paint fumes – we were acting more goofy than usual (if that’s possible). :-)
After painting the second coats on the red and black pieces, I noticed that the GT shell showed drip spots from painting too much at a time and having the paint run down the side as it dried. As you can see in the picture, the paint also started to bubble up on several pieces, including this shell, after applying the second coat. This was not good! I called up my buddy Brian (who is much more talented than I am at this sort of thing) to see if he had any suggestions. Brian said it might be due to the paint rejecting the oils on my fingers, and his advice was to apply paint thinner and repaint. Well, I chose to ignore that advice as it would require another trip to the store, and thought that using either a nail file or sand paper would work to get rid of the bubbles and paint drips. Once smooth, I’d be able to apply another coat right over the top and all would be well...
Unfortunately, this was not a wise decision on my part. The sand paper and nail file were both making the situation worse. Apparently, 2 coats of spray paint do NOT file well…they just get gooey and ruin sand paper. My friend Bob came outside to see how the project was coming along and I told him I thought I needed finer sand paper to salvage the damage I was doing to the paint. He just smiled and volunteered to go to ACE Hardware for some more sandpaper.
As you are probably guessing by now, that didn’t work either, so Bob (who had heard the conversation I had with Brian) got back in his car and went to ACE Hardware yet again, returning with a metal can of paint thinner. The paint thinner should solve all of my problems, right? Wrong. Neither Bob nor I were capable of opening the child-proof top on the can. We tried everything to get it open, until there was nothing left to do but laugh.
So now it was my turn to take yet another trip to ACE Hardware. I brought the container and receipt with me, and asked one of the guys working there if he could get it open. He couldn’t, and before I knew it, there were 3 strong guys all trying to open this childproof can of paint thinner. Talk about entertaining!!! When they decided the can must be broken, they found me another one, which surprisingly opened right up on the first try. :-)
I actually read the instructions before using the paint thinner, which said not to get any on your skin. Not wanting to make another trip to the store if I didn’t have to, I called on my friend Chris to see if he thought it was necessary to use gloves when handling paint thinner. Unfortunately he said yes, so I hopped back in the car and went to Walgreens to pick up a box of latex-free gloves. I grabbed some paper towels and the pieces that needed to be stripped, and could not believe how much time and effort it took to get those 2 coats of paint off! It would have been nice to have had a
The good news is that by taking the paint off, I not only removed the bubbles, but also the paint streaks that ran down the side of the GT. Once the paint was off, I also realized I had originally painted it without the “Gurney bubble”. That would not do! So, I went through my things and found the 2 sets of google eyes that I bought at Michael’s. Had I had any sense at all, I would have brought the piece that the Gurney bubble went on to the store in the first place to make sure it would fit. But did I do that? Of course not! LOL! The result was that the google eyes were too big, so I had to take the newly stripped GT back to Michael’s (which is about 20 miles away) and buy ones that were the correct size. I could script an episode of Seinfeld based on that trip to Michael’s, since Bob and I were completely awestruck by the strange behavior of the obviously new cashier and his manager. But that’s an entirely different subject altogether…
When Bob and I returned, I tried to open the superglue. The instructions said to take the cap off and cut 1/32” from the top of the glue. I incorrectly thought the cap was the part that screws on and off, so I removed the entire thing and chopped off the tip of the purple part. As can be expected, I was rather confused at what I saw under the purple tip. Bob just shook his head and came over to assist me, explaining that the purple part WAS the cap (which I just ruined). So, the purple cap was placed ever so gently into the trash bin and good ol’ duct tape now replaces the top. :-)
Now that the glue was open, I put a couple drops on the back of my makeshift Gurney bubble, and carefully placed it on top of the driver’s side door. After waiting a few hours to make sure the glue was dry, I then took that piece outside and re-sprayed it. I am happy to announce that this time, BOTH coats of paint went on smoothly!
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