Projects 1939 Ford Convertible Sedan Resurrection

Wow Sam! You and Don are continuing to knock it out of the park! I've never used hot rolled steel on my projects...after hearing about your effort to strip the mill scale, I never will. Thanks for sharing that lesson.

Merry Christmas to you guys as well!

 

Wow, Sam, what a fantastic job. The work on the '39 is top shelf ,however, the fixtures, tools and shop modifications you guys have done is just as if not more impressive. I know how much energy can get used up just getting to the problem that needs to be fixed. Very well done. Atta Boy!

 

Just checking in on the progress. Looks awesome so far.

 

Looking good Sam. Im finally at a similar stage myself, body on rotisserie and at a friends body shop. He's letting me do all the prep there and he'll be doing the paint thing. It wont be a shiny show stopper like yours, i'm keeping the 'patina', only because I want to drive it more that I want a shiny car (its been 20 years, i think thats long enough) We're doing the inside in raptor and possibly a heat barrier spray on top, underneath will be shiny black, so that I can keep it clean and not have dirt grab in there. I'll update my build thread soon.

 

It really looks great,Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

Thanks Tim! It's slow progress but any progress is good!

Thanks Joel! Solving problems is one of the most fun parts of this hobby. Buying and making tools to solve a problem is fun also!

Thanks Hot rod Ron!

Thanks Neil! I think I have owned this car over 20 years. Hope to have a driver by summer. depends on how this paint job goes. I am pretty sure i will regret this shiny black paint job some day..... my 39 ford Convertible has a shiny body color paint job underneath. It is easier to wipe down than the raptor finish but since it is white it is showing some stains . I will be using Dynamat on my floor and firewall.I am looking forward to your update.

Thanks chainsaw! Hope you keep watching the thread.

Progress! finally the car is all one color! It always seems like flat gray primed cars look pretty smooth, until you really look close... After another couple of days of sanding masking and cleaning we were able to apply the 2K primer and a couple of coats high build today. We start sanding with 400 grit tomorrow.

 

What a great project to follow along, full of good tips & ingenuity. Two thumbs up!

 

Thanks willysguy !

We took a a couple of weeks off for the Christmas Holidays but have been busy sanding and sanding fixing imperfections etc. for a while now so it was fun to be able to put some colonial white ( Wimbledon white) on the firewall today. This was a single stage Matrix paint. The rest of the body is also ready for paint. Hopefully the black and clear will be on before the weekend.

It looks a little yellow to me.... But should look good with the black car.

I think it is a good improvement over what we started with many years ago. This was the first piece I started with on the car.

The car had one of those manifold exhaust heaters in it so this jagged hole had to be filled . I also replaced the firewall behind the distributor with some 16 ga. There were just too many holes and some brass in the that area so I deemed it easier to replace the whole section.

That's it for now . happy New Year everyone!

 

Looking good!

 

Happy New Year to you guys as well Sam! You guys are really making great progress. Looks great so far, eager to see it in color.

 

Well done, Sam. I can't remember; did '39 have the battery in a shelf in the firewall? I thought all the open cars and woodies used the same cowl section 37 to 40.

 

Thank you Outback!

Thanks Tim! It looks like Friday or Saturday will be color day (black). We plan to clear it over two days as the cut sheet on the Matrix Edge MS-52 Clear says two coats a day would be best according to Don. I don't see that while trying to fact check this. The outside temp has been around mid twenties the last two days. I have to crack a window in the shop to let in enough fresh air for the booth exhaust fan so I have to keep the furnace cranked up all day to keep the temperature in the booth around 70-75. It's supposed to 10 to 12 degrees warmer this weekend so that should help keep the booth closer to the desired spray temperature.

Thanks Joel ! It looked pretty good today when we gave it a good close look. Just one little piece of lint got into the paint. It should clean up easily.

So I checked my V8 Club book on 38-39 fords on the battery box question. Apparently 38 Deluxe and 39 Standard Fords used the firewall mount for the battery while 39 Deluxe used the frame mounted battery box.
of course there are variations to the battery box and hold down systems on both models, as Ford was always changing things and of course using up old stock from the previous years.

 

So black it is! We started painting the black today. As I feared the black exposed some body work that is not up to my standards so we will have to make some adjustments. Don did the spraying today. He did a pretty darn good job! we had a couple of runs in the sealer primer which were able to fix. We also have some orange peel in the base coat. We expected that but now have to decide if the 5 coats of clear will cover that up well enough to make it disapear after color sanding.

This was a long day in the shop to get just this far. If we are lucky we can patch up the
quarter panel and move on to clear tomorrow. The booth is working great! The furnace
is keeping up with the cold air we have to allow in to the shop to keep the air clear. We are
maintaining 70-75 degrees in the booth. I think all of the lights also help heat the booth.

 

Congratulations....you guys have come so far to get to this point.

 

Good to see Don in a full suit with gloves. Too many guys being nonchalant with the paint in short sleeves and bare hands.

 

Hmmm;
DARK Black - *my* kinda black... .
That sure will look good. W/the multiple coats clear, is it just to colorsand w/o worry, or is it for the mile-deep effect(hopefully)?
Btw; that would make an excellent base for RealFire( )(the *only* flames I like anymore), but that might not go so well w/the rest of the cars' features & image?
Marcus...

 

Man-oh-man! You guys are killing it! Love seeing a plan come together.

 

Congratulations Sam and Don! This is a giant step.

 

Was there ever a question?
Looking good. Huge sense of accomplishment getting color and clear on. I love the smell of reducer in the morning.

 

Thank you, thats true,it has been a long journey. It is very encouraging to reach this point.

Yes, it's not all that expensive to outfit ourselves in suits and gloves. I tried using the 3M mask this time but for some reason it just is not working for me. I bought a little positive pressure breathing air system for myself from Mike the painter ( now retired). Mike Painted Don's 54 Merc and my 40 coupe) So I got a pretty good deal on it and it works very well. The only hassle is the breathing air hose. I ended up buying a second hose last night so I could have one in the booth and another for the mixing table that is located outside the booth. We are both old enough and had been exposed to chemicals through out our working careers. So our tolerance to these paint chemicals is pretty low. It wouldn't make mush sense to spend all of this time building the car to just end up to sick to drive it!

Hi Marcus! Yes I hope it looks good in black. We had to make a couple of adjustments today after finding a couple of flaws in the body work after the base coat was applied. That delayed us a couple of hours but we still got our 5 coats of (not quite so much worry) clear on the car.

That said we are rookies at this paint stuff. We do have plenty of orange peel. Hopefully the 5 coats of clear will give us a little rookie cushion and if we are very lucky a mile deep oh so black finish like our friend Bandit Billy likes sooo much.

Yes black 39-40 Fords look great in flames/real fire . But I have no plans for flames so far. I thinking more sedate cruiser style for this one.

Thanks Tim! I ditched the green! So far I think this black might just work.

Yes, there was a question, I was looking into a light green color as seen on some of the modern cars. But I decided I wanted to join your dust the car three or four times a day club. I used to love the smell of paint but now it just makes my lungs hurt. I just hope I survie this paint stage of the project. We still have about 100 big and little thing parts to paint and polish.

Thanks to you guys for watching and commenting! I'll post some pictures after we get this thing cut and buffed a little. We are going to take a day off and let this paint set up a bit before sanding it.

 

"I bought a little positive pressure breathing air system for myself" .
Brand & model #? Curious how well it works, always wanted one. My lungs aren't the best anymore either...
Where do you pickup your fresh air from? & a spl filter there too? Seems to me, no matter where I'd put it, the fumes would swirl around & get pulled in. Maybe it's just here... I actually thought about using a SCUBA tank, or a firefighters' tank(which I have from somewhere). Not much time, though. Unless I'd get a rack of 3, like seen on occasionally on the "Bottom of the Sea"(or somesuch) w/Lloyd Bridges. & then I couldn't stand up, much less bend over... .
TIA.
Marcus...