Columbus..the 1957 IH 4x4..

[mongocanfly]

Getting ready to paint the tailgate lettering,,,I'd asked in the paint section about how the best way to go about it but didnt get much responce..so heres how I'm doing it...
I started out and sanded all around the lettering with 1500g to get all the nibs out..
Then I taped up around all the letters to help keep the accidental scratches from happening..(hopefully)
Then I sanded the lettering with 400g...
Then pulled all the tape off, and wiped it all down with wax and degreaser..
And retaped all the letters with fineline tape...a little touchup sanding here and there
Another wipedown and then I'll tape up the whole tailgate...
Then paint..I'm using the same gray color that I used on the Interior but I'm not adding flattner..so the letters will be gloss..gonna paint it tonite after it cools down..its 90deg in the shop at the moment..
After drying I'll sand it all with 2500g and then buff/polish
Hopefully itll turn out alright..
1st pic is taped for sanding
2nd pic is taped for painting

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks like it will work just fine

[mongocanfly]

Thanks,,,,fingers crossed Dale..

[8man]

You do very nice work!

[mongocanfly]

Thanks Robert..!

[mongocanfly]

Pulled the tape this morn and put it out in the sun to help it cure...had some bleed thru under the tape in a few spots..hopefully with some careful sanding I can clean it up and feather in the edges..
Without the flattner in the paint it has more of a silver look to it...once the red is buffed I think itll look ok..

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks good to me. Buff it up and it'll look great.

[mongocanfly]

Thanks Dale..!

[Scott2]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Pulled the tape this morn and put it out in the sun to help it cure...had some bleed thru under the tape in a few spots..hopefully with some careful sanding I can clean it up and feather in the edges..
Without the flattner in the paint it has more of a silver look to it...once the red is buffed I think itll look ok..

Looks great! I’ve been thinking of painting the tailgate letters on my ‘51 so I may copy you.

[mongocanfly]

Thanks Scott....I can already tell you it ain't no fun project...took almost 3hrs to tape up letters..

[richard2717]

when we painted tailgate lettering we always had a local pinstripe guy come around and put a small outline around the letters. That really made them pop

[Scott2]

Originally Posted by richard2717

when we painted tailgate lettering we always had a local pinstripe guy come around and put a small outline around the letters. That really made them pop

That’s a good idea!

[Ol Blue K20]

I like the pinstripe idea too. After buffing of course.

[mongocanfly]

I had thought about that Richard..if the edges dont look good that will probably happen

[8man]

Don't concentrate on what is wrong, look at how it looks, and it looks great. The colors work!

[72 tigger]

Tailgate looks really good

[67C10Step]

That’s way better than ok. That’s great!

[mongocanfly]

Thanks Robert, Kirk, 67step..!!

[mongocanfly]

Sometimes there's things that are best left to the professionals...but I just dont have it in me...
I knew I wanted to colormatch bedliner the bed...I really like the line-x jobs I've had done in the past...but the 1st words outta their mouth when you walk in the door is $1000.00
So leave it to me to search for a alternative...I'd had linerextreme recommended to me by several individuals...I've never used their products so I thought I'd give them a try..
Well this was a disaster from the word go...I have to shoulder a good bit of the blame for my problems ...probably about 95% of it...well maybe 100%...
The product mixed really well....use a hopper gun made for spraying ceiling....pour all ingredients in a bucket and stir with a paint stick..pour in hopper...spray...easy right?
Pour product in gun...product runs out of gun onto floor...what the #@&%$....somebody forgot to put the tip on the gun....try to quickly pour liner back in bucket...and the hopper comes off the gun...spilling about half the liner on the floor before in can get my hand over the hopper hole....I had plastic on the floor, luckily ,and managed to scoop up most of the spilled liner and put back in bucket...but now the gun is covered with liner..
What a freaking mess...wipe gun down and start over...got hopper back on gun..refill hopper ,start over..
Did a test spray on paper...looks good...sprayed one coat on the tailgate...looks good
Climb in the bed to start spraying the floor....make one sweep....and the hopper comes off the gun ...
$#@&%$#@....
Now I've got liner about 1/2" deep on the bed...then I'm running around in circles trying to find a brush...finally smear it out so it's not puddled up...my goodness what a mess...finally got it smoothed down some what...but looks awful...finish spraying what was left in the hopper...
Mix up batch #2......trying to be even more careful trying to put the 2nd coat on...everything wa going fairly good when ....wait for it........................you guessed it......the hopper came off the gun again......no matter how tite i tightened the clamps it just would not stay on the gun....so now I've got an even bigger mess...puddled up liner on the bed and all over the floor.......you can already see where this is going...
Well I managed to get done...it looks like hammered crap...
And the fumes....let me tell you....I've never done drugs, but a drug dealer could make a fortune selling the fumes off this stuff...respirator and all..it dont matter...at times I was floating around the room...found myself on the floor once...had my fans running, but it didnt help...
But I'm done...

[mongocanfly]

And here it is..

[8man]

The color matches well, and the finish is spectacular given the problems you had with that hopper!

[Scott2]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

And here it is..

I think it looks just fine. Sounds like the kind of problems I have though - I flipped a dune baggy last year and painted it in the garage in my homemade plastic sheet booth. All went beautiful, the paint was really nice, so I closed up the plastic and went to lunch. While gone a huge gust came up, ripped the plastic off the anchoring 2x4s and stuck it to the new paint. A few days later I was spraying bedliner inside the tub and somehow the overspray floated around the garage, went under the masking paper over the new paint and guess where it stuck...

I was really unhappy and while I was grumping around and putting the final touches on the buggy a guy showed up, loved it, couldn't care less about the screwups and bought it for asking price!

I am about to spray bedliner inside my Jeep J10 bed and I honestly hope it looks as good as yours does.

That is a sweet truck! Breath deep and keep going!

[mongocanfly]

thanks Robert and Scott...
when I talked to the liner guy I asked him about using my lizard skin gun to spray it with...he said he had no experience with that type gun...use the hopper gun he says..looking back I think it would have worked just fine.....and if I had thought about it , I should have scooped up what got spilled in the bed and put back in the bucket,,,as opposed to me smearing it around...I probably could have sprayed over those areas and it would have looked better.....I cant blame any of it on the liner itself....just the application process

[Scott2]

Look on the bright side - you could have fallen in the bigass puddle, rolled around a few times and coated yourself like a chicken wing, and then set up into a giant statue of yourself - looking around and wishing like hell you were not so far away from everyone else! you could have been there for months like one of those Pompei statues! hah!

[Ol Blue K20]

I think it looks good in the pics. But, when you do a job, you're the first to see flaws. Most of the time no one else will see it. Keep a stiff upper lip and move on buddy. Keep up the great work you're doin'.....