The start of the painting

 So it’s been a long time since my last update, or since I last undertook some work on the Defender. Seems I can only attached this project in waves… I think it due to weather… and cash flow!

Next up is a very exciting stage – painting!

Now  I have never painted anything properly, I’ve use the odd rattle can on very small items but nothing to this extent so this is a learning curve. A very steep one. This is turning out to be the most frustrating part of my project so far.

First up I dug out all the old body work sections I buried 6 months ago. The rear tub being one. 

Having reviewed the condition I decided to remove the capping sections of the tub and paint them separately.

Then I took the tub in to my new spray booth (cheap gazebo, note the word cheap this will be important later in this post)

 

I put on the etch, then two high builds. So far so good, seems easy! Next base coat – Epsom Green, again went well - seems to good to be true...

Then after this was the lacquer, first coat was great. Second coat sagged – gutted. Oh well, rub it down, blow over the lot again…..

I rubbed down too much, decided to touch up with some base and the paint reacted. Large patches of leather grain paint. So at this point I move the tub out to let it fully cure. But during this time I did get the seat box, 2^nd row floor and bulkhead brace painted and finished.

While the tub was drying I moved on to the roof and wheels (in Fuji white).

Went pretty good, wheels are complete, but the lacquer ran again on one side of the roof, so rubbed down and finished for the night to let it dry ready for another coat the next day.

Went to work, weather got a bit windy, came back to find this….

Gutted, not only is my cheap gazebo knackered but so it the new paint to my roof, so I now have to rub down the whole lot and re-basecoat it, then re-lacquer. Fortunately I took the wheels out so they are fine. Just have to wait for my new, commercial grade, gazebo to arrive before I can continue…. So as the old saying goes; buy cheap, buy twice. Literally everything twice – gazebo, white base coat, lacquer.