The turbulent, stormy weather had passed. After the two days of heavy rain and thunderstorms, the sun was back out - and with it, the temperatures went right back up. A light, thin morning mist greeted the day as the already steadily growing heat had dried up the soaked land, making it steam up overnight.
The somewhat nasal-sounding buzzing of the old radio-alarmclock woke up the pastel yellow mouse woman Michelle Frelang early Friday morning. She stretched and slipped out of bed, stepping over to the bedroom window and opening it again while leaning out to pull in a deep breath of the fresh outside air with a smile at the tendrils of mist drifting around on the light breeze. It promised to be a fine day.
Morning routine! A naked power breakfast with the radio turned on to hear the 8 o'clock newscast and weather forecast, a quick shower to fully wake up body and mind, a quick stint in the dryer booth. Putting on a pair of shorts and a shirt, grabbing all the things that needed to be brought along to work, getting into the car to drive to the garage. This time, the blue 1962 Ford Falcon Missy had decided to drive through the stormy days and would continue to use for a few days. Arriving at the garage. A quick look around; Fanni was not there yet. The cream-colored and white skunk woman who was Missy's lover had said she'd be there to check up on the landscaping around the garage after the storm of the previous day, but it was still early, after all.
Further routines. Unlocking and opening the far left regular door of the garage, switching on lights in the Mountain Dew display refrigerator and the office, booting up the office computer and checking messages on the answering machine of the landline telephone, then online after the computer had finished booting up. And of course, refreshing the dryfood and water in the feeding station and kitty drinking fountains of Salmon, the fluffy Maine Coon garage cat, and giving her plenty pets, as that was always the most important job of the day. No messages on the answering machine; several on the computer. A few emails for customer appointments, several orders at the webstore for both Mousie Motorworks merchandise and refurbished car parts, a number of comments on videos of her Youtube channel. All in all, an hour of work to go through all the messages, leave replies to some of the Youtube comments, schedule in the customer requests and print out shipping labels for the items ordered in the webstore. Another half hour to select and box up the items and label the boxes.
Carrying the boxes out to the Ford Falcon she had parked under the roof over the old fuel pumps, Missy smiled and waved at the tan and cream 1969 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with the Flower Children logo on the doors that pulled into the yard to also park under the roof over the old fuel pumps.
"Morning, darling!" she smiled at the cream-colored and white skunkette dressed in a pair of tan overalls over a green shirt getting out of the truck. "No need to ask Salmon where I am, because as you can see I'm right here. And I'm even still fully dressed as well!"
"Yeah, I, uh... I guess I should be grateful for that?" Fanni said with a light smile. "Anyway, good morning, Missy. It's so great to see you again. How has everything, uh, held up here through that storm yesterday? I noticed the, uh, the blue spruces on the berm are a bit crooked when I drove up here."
She murmured a happy sound and closed her eyes as after putting the boxes on the passenger seat of the Ford Falcon, Missy took her into a hug and a loving kiss.
"Yeah, that's about the only damage I spotted," the vanilla-colored mousette nodded with a smile after the kiss. "That and a bit of flooding in the back by the washing station." She fluttered a paw at the road running past the front of the garage. "Only real damage was one of the trees along the road up there snapping and falling over the road, but here on the premises? Nothing save for those spruce trees." She playfully booped the fairly large pink pad of Fanni's nose with a fingertip. "Just goes to show what an amazing gardener you are, darling; everything you did here withstood the force of the storm."
A light blush formed around the skunkette's nose pad, but her lips still formed into another light smile.
"Well, I have been doing it for, uh, for almost a decade now, after all. And, uh, who knows what, uh, other kind of damage I may still find." She leaned into the cab of the pickup truck to take a small tablet from the top of the dashboard. "I guess I'd better get on with my, uh, my check-up round. What, uh, what will you be doing today?"
"I gotta sand down the filler I put on the Chevelle, darling," Missy smiled, curling her lips a bit further into a mild grin as she pointed at the frontmost of the two large buildings at the far right side of the yard. "So I'll be in there wearing nothing but Darth Vader's cousin's helmet, throwing a whole lot of dust. And I'll be filming it for the video series, so I would appreciate if you don't barge in there come lunchtime, okay? Oh, and I'm expecting a few deliveries today, so if you could take care of those, I would really appreciate that too. It's all parts for the motor, so you can let them set everything in that secondary workroom, I'll sort it out later."
The blush around Fanni's nose pad crept a bit further across her cheeks, but she still smiled.
"Of course, I'll, uh, I'll be glad to do that for you, Missy. Should I, uh, bring those boxes to the post office for you, too?"
"Nah, I'll drop them off when we go to Patty's for lunch," Missy smiled. "Don't worry about the phone either, I got that covered, and if you need anything, you know where to find it or where to find me, okay?"
"Okay, uh, sounds good, Missy," Fanni nodded with a light smile. "I'll, uh, I'll get started, then."
Missy nodded and pressed a playful smooch on Fanni's nose before making her way over to the frontmost right-side building while Fanni started slowly walking around the premises, checking the plants and the lights in the brick planters along the road, the large Golden Rain shrub in the middle planter which had its branches tied to a latticework between the posts of the roof over the old fuel pumps, the linden trees in the rightmost planter which had their branches tied to a larger latticework over some posts by the very front of the first large right-side building so it formed a roof over the parking spaces along the short side of the building facing the road, the chainlink fence and the row of blue spruce trees alongside the left property line, the plants in the double-paneled sheetpile wall along the left property line behind the main garage building and the row of blue spruce trees planted on top of the earth berm against the inside of that wall, to see if the storm of the previous day had done any damage.
In the meantime, Missy readied all the tools she would be needing in the sanding hall, set up the cameras and the lights, checked them, adjusted a couple of them and switched them on. A quick panning along the bodyshell and all the loose body panels of the 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle she was doing a video series on, setting the main camera back on its tripod and leaning sideways into frame from very close by on the side as if to check the camera was running.
"Alright, we live? We-e-e're live. Hey ho all you wonderful people out there in Youtube land! Missy here from Mousie Motorworks, back with yet another exciting episode. As you noticed, all the initial mudding has been done, in this episode we're going to sand all that to smooth it down, and see if we need to apply another layer, or just glaze some small spots here and there. So actually it's not gonna be an exciting episode at all, it's gonna be a boring and very dusty one! But nevertheless, get yourself a beverage, sit back, relax, and follow right along with me bringing this car one further step closer to being finished, in the next episode of the Chevelle series, right here at Mousie Motorworks!"
One... two... three... there was the editing point. Taking the main camera from its tripod again, Missy took it over to the wide workbench along the dividing wall and panned along all the tools and items she had set out on there, every now and then picking up some of them.
"So here we are. As you can see, I'm still very organized, and I have a damn large collection of tools at my disposal. First and foremost; electric DA sanders. Yes, even we super experienced and super skilled bodyworkers use those, folks, because truth be told, we know how to use them better than your average joe. Sounds conceited, I know, but I assure you it's not to boast or anything. Every kind of tool requires a level of skill to use it properly, and when you have gained as much experience and honed your skill as much as someone like myself, you get a feeling for the finesse of using tools like these. So, what you notice right away is that while here is a rectangular one, and here is a round one, neither of these are orbital sanders. Never ever use orbital sanders for bodywork on cars, folks. They're great for sanding woodwork, or panels of siding or something like that, your regular work around the house and so. But because they only rotate, they're not suitable for working on cars. They'll leave tons of swirl marks and weird edges that either will take you days and days of work to remove, or will be visible under your final paintwork. But with DA sanders like these, even a round one like this, the head also moves back and forth and left and right to prevent the sandpaper from digging in and leaving swirl marks and weird edges. So these are for your first pass over body filler applied to a car, the rough initial work to smooth down all those ripples and drips that are left from applying the filler. And for the areas where there's a thicker layer of filler with more of those ripples and drips, we have this thing here. Looks like a cheese grater, don't it? Well, you could actually use it for that, come to think of it, but in that case I would keep it exclusively in the kitchen if I were you, haha. Wouldn't want the grated cheese to crunch between my teeth from the specks of filler mixed in if you first use this on a car, I'll tell you what! But anyway, yeah, this is a rasp, and it's for very rough work because it removes fairly sizeable quantities of filler with each pass."
She moved further along the workbench and picked up several rectangular blocks.
"Here we have the tools for the next step. These are your standard sanding blocks, and a coupla less than standard ones. We all know these ones, the cork and the rubber ones, and these here brightly colored ones are hard silicone ones. Not solid, mind you, just really really firm, but still with a bit of give to them so they can conform to the curves of the body panels. Different sizes, slightly different shapes, each one with their own quality of what area best to use them for. I don't have to explain you how these work, because we all know how these work; you wrap sandpaper around it and rub it over the area you want to sand. Of course there's a technique to that, but we'll get to that later. So, sandpaper!" Missy panned the camera along a long row of discs and sheets of sandpaper. "Oh boy oh boy, that is a lo-o-ot of sandpaper laying here, isn't it? But don't worry, not all of these are needed in these first stages we'll be getting to today; I just put them all out to show you and tell you which to use and how for every stage. See folks, in professional collision repair or restoration of cars, a bodyworker goes through five stages of sanding to get the perfect finish. Stage one is for stripping and heavy material removal; that's basically only collision repair, as you'll be working on a small area of an already painted car. In that stage, you start with... oh, hang on actually, let me first explain the grit numbers. Because that is something you hear mentioned lots in videos on car paintwork repair; we'll use an eight hundred grit here, let's use five hundred grit for this, for this we need two thousand grit. You've all heard that, but what does it actually mean? Well, those numbers indicate the roughness of the sandpaper. The lower the number, the coarser the paper, as lower numbers mean larger and more abrasive particles per square inch on the paper. That's why you always progress from low-grit to high-grit as you work through the stages, to make the surface smoother and smoother as you go. So, back to what I was going to say. Stage one - we can skip a part of stage one, as this car has been media-blasted. But usually, you start with something like a thirty to forty grit paper to strip down a damaged area to bare metal, removing the clearcoat, the color finish, the primer and anything that might be under it. As I said, we can skip that because we did that with the media-blasting already. The next step of stage one is your sixty grit right here; that's for the rough shaping of the body filler you have applied. So what I mentioned before; the smoothing of the rough ripples and drips in the set filler, and we also use this to smooth down welds. After that; eighty grit. That's to refine the shape of the patch of filler and feather the edges of it down towards the surface of the bare metal. Eighty grit scratches are the roughest ones that can be covered with skim filler or heavy primer, like a high-build primer. And that's your first stage of sanding right there. In this case, I'll be starting out with the sixty grit. Also, this is dry sanding, so this is the dusty part."
She lay the discs aside and took a step sideways to the next selection of discs.
"Moving on to stage two. That's the finishing of the patches of filler and the prep for the applying of primer. First, you check all the patches of filler to see if there's any pinholes or tiny dimples; you may need to squish some skim coat filler or glazing putty into those first and let it set up before going to stage two. Let's say we've done that, so we're ready for stage two. First step is your one hundred to one-twenty grit. That's for the final bit of shaping the patch of filler and smoothing down the material you may have needed to put into any pinholes. With this, you basically remove the deeper eighty-grit scratches to get the surface ready for either a skim coat of filler over the patches that have filler, or a coat of high-build primer over the entire panel, or in this case, the entire car." She leaned against the workbench and pointed the camera at herself. "And let me interrupt myself right there. I said, a coat of high-build primer over the entire car. First off; what is high-build primer?" She reached behind her and grabbed an aerosol can from the workbench. "This is the stuff. It's a very thick polyester-based primer; essentially, it's sort of spray-able filler, that is formulated to cover and fill minor imperfections, such as pinholes, pitting or scratches, and it won't run or sag because it's so thick. But you do have to sand it afterwards, and here's the fly in the clearcoat; it's touch-dry after an hour, but you should only apply the next coat after four to eight hours, and if you're working in just your garage, or this here hall for instance, it will take two weeks to fully cure. And you have to let it cure fully, all the way. So it will stall your project for a decent amount of time. Of course, you can utilize this; say you're waiting on parts that you need to continue your project. That is time you can't work on your project anyway, so you may as well put your project in some high-build primer as well and let it cure in that time you have to wait anyway for the other parts to arrive. Or use that time to do other things, like, for instance, rebuilding the engine, re-covering the seats, or any of the kind of work you can do away from the car." A light chortle slipped past Missy's lips. "Now, I can hear you already; Missy Missy! Does that mean it will take two weeks before you can do any more work on the body after you've put on that primer? No, folks, don't worry. Those times are approximate times, based on the usual working space of someone who uses the stuff. So, for instance, as I mentioned, you guys and gals who just work in your garage, or a basic workshop. But as you know, here at Mousie Motorworks is a very professional, high-end paint booth with a myriad of functions and magic. I will shoot the high-build primer onto the car in that booth, not with these spraycans but with an actual spray gun I use exclusively for high-build primer, and once it's on there, I can set that booth to bake, which will significantly speed up the curing process. In my case, it will only take a few days to fully cure. Which is good, because tomorrow I'll be rebuilding the motor, Sunday I'll be editing the next video, Monday is my day off to go the gym, and by Tuesday the curing process will have finished so I can get right back to work. Now, let's discuss another few very important aspects of different kinds of primer, shall we?"
The vanilla-hued mousette turned back to the workbench and set out a selection of aerosol cans.
"First off, most of you will have heard of the term 'acid-etch' primer. That's this stuff. This is used to spray onto bare metal, as it's formulated to bite into the bare metal for a super good and tough adhesion. The thing is, when you have a car with one or several patches of filler on the body, you have to spray around those patches because it will also eat into the filler, and then you will have to apply more filler to fix the dimples." She casually tossed the can over her shoulder. "So we're not gonna use that. The advantage of high-build primer is that you can also spray that directly onto bare metal, as it basically does a very similar thing to acid-etch primer, but it won't affect body filler. So before any of you climb into your keyboard to shout at me for not using acid-etch primer on the large areas of bare metal on this car; I won't need to use acid-etch primer because the high-build does pretty much the same thing. Next, look at the lids of these cans." She tapped the lid of each can with a finger. "Black, white, gray, a sort of sand color. Yes, this primer does come in different colors, much like regular primers. But what is the purpose of that, I hear you ask? What does it matter if the primer has a specific color, since you will be spraying an actual color over it and cover it up? Well, obviously, there is a purpose. Those of you who have worked on the paintwork of cars, and those of you who have watched other channels here on Youtube working on the paintwork of cars, will have noticed that some cars have different colors of primer under their colored topcoat. So why is that? It's because of the color of the topcoat, folks. Cars that come in a light color, such as white or silver, which seems to be the standard nowadays, will have white or gray primer underneath, cars that come in a dark color like black, dark gray, dark blue, colors like that, will usually have black primer underneath. Red cars... often gray, sometimes brown primer, although brown was more prevalent back in the day, not these days so much anymore. The color of the primer affects the color of the topcoat. But Missyyy, that's ridiculous, I hear you type. How can the primer color affect the topcoat color? You cover up the primer with the topcoat! Yes you do, but the primer still affects the final color. Look at this."
Stepping over to the far end of the workbench, Missy picked up a small flat stick that had a thin, wide strip of flat metal attached to it. The metal strip was painted in square sections of white paint; at the top, a deep off-white, almost grayish white color, below that a creamy tint of white, below that a brighter white, and at the very bottom a very bright white. As the squares all touched each other, the subtle differences in the tints of white were clearly visible.
"This is what we call a test swatch. When you mix paint, you spray some on one of these so you can hold it next to the panels of your car to see if it matches correctly, or to take it out into the sunlight to see how the paint will look, especially when it has flake or metallic or candy or pearl in it. And about forty-seven point three five eight repeating percent of you folks are not gonna believe this, but this here is all the exact same white paint," she said, touching each square from top to bottom with a fingertip. "Wimbledon White to be exact, but under here is black primer, under here tan primer, under here gray primer, and under here white primer. So even while the camera might not do it justice, you can still see with your own eyes that the color of the primer does actually affect what the topcoat of paint will look like. It can either ruin the color of the paint, or bring out the deepness of it, depending on how you look at it. Are you painting a car red and you want your red to look super bright firetruck-y red? Use a tan or light brown primer. Do you want your red to look deeper, a bit darker but still full and fresh? Use black primer underneath. Use a white primer, and you will get that effect that older red cars have that have been sitting out in the sun for years; a more faded color, even down to a pink depending on how many, or how few, coats of color you lay down." She tossed the stick back onto the workbench and turned to the bodyshell of the Chevelle. "So! What does this mean for the Mousie Motorworks Chevelle project? Well, I will be two-toning it; Ancona Blue roof, sail panels and windshield pillars, Mousie Motorworks Yellow on the rest of the body. So I will in fact be using two different colors of high-build primer; a gray mixed two to one with black for the roof to bring out the blue, and the beige primer for the rest to make sure the pastel yellow will actually look like pastel yellow." Pointing the camera at herself, the light yellow mousette laughed and sent the camera a cheerful wink. "Oh my goodness and was that a whole lot of talking by me or what? And that was even just an aside! Because as you may remember from about six hundred hours ago, I was actually talking about the stages of sanding! So why don't we get back to that before this day is over? Yeah, good idea."
Walking back to the part of the workbench where all the discs and sheets of sandpaper had been laid out, Missy ran her fingers over some of them.
"So where were we? Oh right, step one of stage two. Your one hundred to hundred-twenty grit to remove the eighty grit scratches and prep the filler surface. Step two is this one, your one-fifty grit. That's for further feathering the edges down towards the bare metal, and from there, we move on to one-eighty grit. This is just a final scuff to remove the sanding scratches; one-eighty grit scratches are fine enough to get fully covered by primer, and still rough enough to give the primer a good adhesion to the underground. Between stage two and stage three, you will apply your first coat of primer, which will usually be high-build primer. It will be in this case, so after the last step of stage two, we'll clean the whole car, remove all the dust and grease and grime and put on our first coat of primer, let it dry, the four to eight hours I mentioned earlier, or one hour in the paint booth in my case, give it a light pass with one-eighty grit all over, clean off, apply second coat of high-build primer. Now we're at the stage where we will be doing the prepwork that will actually affect the final topcoat, because this is the final stage before we go to shooting actual paint onto the car. Any scratches or pinholes or whatever we leave or overlook here will show through the final topcoat, so here is where you can make or break your project. Now, this Chevelle will not be going for any awards in car shows or whatever, so technically, we don't need a mirror-smooth finish. But we still want it to look nice, don't we? Even when you're standing really close to it and look at the paintwork from very close by. So we'll start our stage three with step one; two-twenty grit. That's to remove the orange peel from spraying the high-build primer, and here is where you start using the guide coat paint or powder to make sure you won't miss any scratches or low spots. This is still dry-sanding, so we're still in the dusty phase here. You can use a DA sander for this step, that's especially handy on large panels like the roof for instance, but make sure to use one like this one here." She pointed at one of the DA sanders and pressed a finger against the pad of it. "A soft pad, so it will follow the contours of the car's body lines. I will use this for the roof, and the other flat surfaces like the hood and the deck lid, maybe the doors and the quarter panels and the front fenders. But it's more likely I will actually do those with one of these rubber or silicone sanding blocks, because this car has such rounded curves as well as some pretty sharp body lines. Then we move on to our three-twenty grit; that's the basic standard prep for the base coat of the actual color. This is what we call the Goldilocks grit; not so coarse it leaves scratches that will show through in the topcoat, not so fine the paint can't properly stick to the panel, but just right. Again, you can use this on a soft-pad DA sander for the large and flat areas, which I will do, as well as using it with the rubber or silicone block. Now, there is one more step in stage three, but it's an optional step depending on what kind of paint you're gonna be using on your car. In the case of this project here, both the Ancona Blue and the Mousie Motorworks Yellow are what we call solid gloss colors. That means there's no additions to the paint to give it an effect, such as metallic flake; it's just pigment. For those kind of colors, the three-twenty grit step is the final step of sanding the primer before laying down the base coat. But if you're gonna use a metallic, pearl or candy paint, you want to add the optional step of making a pass with four hundred grit paper. I will actually do this step because it gives an extra-smooth look to the solid colors, and you need the extra smooth foundation for metallics and pearls or candies. So one more pass after dusting the whole car with guide coat powder, and you can still do this dry, but wet-sanding here will actually help, especially on the larger panels like the roof, hood, or quarters because the reflection of the water will help you to spot any roughness in the primer you're sanding." She pointed the camera at herself again and smiled. "So for this video, I will be using up to these grit-levels. But I can already hear you folks again. Missy Missy! Why are there still so many more laying here? And you said there's five stages! Yes, I did. But the final two stages come after you have applied your base coat, topcoat and, depending on whether you're using two-stage or single-stage paint, your clearcoat. Or in simpler words; after you've shot your color onto the car. Because yes folks, you do actually have to also sand the colored paint. Now, if you're just doing a scratch-and-shoot because you just want to refresh the car and you don't care about the quality of the result, you won't have to do all this. But we're going for a nice smooth finish here, factory quality at least, and since I'm such a perfectionist, a bit better than factory quality. This Chevelle is not gonna be a show car, but it is gonna be a really nice car. It's gonna be, and do excuse this terribly overused cliche, 'like new'. So once the color is on, we'll go right on ahead to stage four." She turned back to the workbench again. "Now, stage four has an optional step as well, depending on what you're working with. Are you doing a repair and you have only re-sprayed a small area on the car? Then you will need to start at step one, which is your five hundred grit here. Use that to scuff up the clearcoat around the area you've re-sprayed so you can blend the new clearcoat into the existing clearcoat. I will also start with step one, because if you want better-than-factory or show car level results, which I do, you'll need to give the whole car a pass with the five hundred grit before shooting the first basecoat of color. Then the color goes on, and once that has dried - note I said dried and not cured - we're ready for step two; the six hundred grit. This is the wet-sanding stage, and we're using the six hundred grit to smooth down or remove any runs or sags in the base coat."
For a few moments, the light yellow mousette actually set the camera back on its tripod. She stood in front of it, looked straight into the camera and raised a finger, pointing at the camera.
"You, you and you. And you over there. Yeah, you. I heard you. And you too, down there. 'Waaaaa, rubbish! I'm so good, I don't have to do this because I don't get any runs in my paint!' Youuu liars!" A playful grin curled the mousette's lips. "Yeah, that's right, I called you a bunch of liars! Let me make this very clear, folks; it does not matter even the slightest micro-iota how good you are, or as the case is for a lot of people; how good you think you are. You, are, gonna, get, runs! Robby Layton gets runs. Kevin Tetz gets runs. Chip Foose gets runs. Goddam Charley Hutton gets runs. I have been doing this at a super top tier professional level at a specialty exotics garage for a good two decades, and I get runs. It's what paint does. It's not about how good you are, it's a quality of the material you're working with. So suck it up, swallow your pride, don't be afraid or ashamed to admit it; you will get runs in your paintwork. And that is what step two of stage four is for. As I said; six hundred grit, used wet, to remove and smooth down any runs and sags, and you do this with a firm rubber block and lots of water. The next and final step is eight hundred grit; this is your final scuff of existing clearcoat on panels where you're blending new with existing, and in the case of an entire car, it's where you fix any defects in the first and subsequent layers of clearcoat. And from there, we go on to the nitty gritty - ha ha, get it, gritty - the final touches, the perfection. This is stage five, the final stage, and the suckiest stage. Because here is your car, all assembled and complete, all painted, all layers of clearcoat applied, and there it sits, looking beautiful, shining in the light, sparkling like a gem. Wow, did it come out great. Just look at how shiny it is! Whoaaa! I can count my whiskers in the reflection! And now you have to scuff it all up again, make it dull and ugly. AAARGH! All that work! And I'm ruining it! Why am I doing that to myself?" A wide, cheery grin. "Throughout that battle in your mind, folks, keep repeating the mantra to yourself; it's gonna look worse before it looks better. It's gonna look worse before it looks better. It's gonna... you get the idea. Because stage five is where you achieve your final perfection." She turned back to the workbench. "Now, there's four steps to stage five, but some are optional again. It will depend on several factors; the type and quality of the clearcoat you've used, sometimes even the brand, the environment you've been working in, even the weather can play a role here. So here is your finished car, all painted and clearcoated. Stick your nose up against it and look down the panels with a light; there will be orange peel. Again, that is what paint does. However, the orange peel can differ in severity. A lower quality clearcoat, a lower quality paint gun, improper settings on your gun's air supply, the wrong tip on your gun, it all matters. So if you have some pretty bad orange peel, you'll want to start out with a thousand grit, wet and on a hard rubber or cork block. That will cut through clear pretty damn quickly though, so make sure to keep the block flat, make light passes and check often. If the orange peel is not too bad, you can skip the one thousand and go straight to fifteen hundred; that's your standard starting base with most of today's brands and types of clearcoat. Again, wet-sand with a hard block, making light passes. However! If you're clever, you can skip this step as well and combine it into step three." Missy picked up a sanding disc and held it up to the camera. "This here is a Three-M Trizact P-three thousand finishing disc. For one, obviously, it's a disc so you can use it on a DA sander. For another, this one has a very special abrasive quality; it's structured. Meaning, it works similar to a cutting compound. This disc basically starts out as fifteen hundred grit, but as you use it, the structure of the abrasive breaks down and becomes finer and finer, so by the time you're finished, it's more like three thousand grit. Step two is removing light to moderate orange peel, step three is refining the scratch pattern of the sanding before buffing with a compound, these discs start out as step two and end as step three so you can do both those steps with just one disc. And technically, this is also the final step. Because now the surface is so smooth, the sanding scratches are so diminutive and shallow, that all you have to do to turn that ugly dull look back into a glossy mirror-like finish is buff it. However, if you're a perfectionist like me, or you want show car quality finish because you actually aim to win prizes at car shows, then there is one more step you can do, and that is a final pass with anything above three thousand grit. Three to five thousand is the standard, and pretty much the finest grit of sandpaper you can find. So, again, I will be doing that final step as well, and then do several steps of cutting and buffing. But that is still a good bit in the future, folks, because, well, so far I only have done a whole damn lot of talking, and the car is still sitting here in pieces with patches of raw filler all over it! High time we actually get to work!"
One, two three... editing point. Missy turned off the cameras and repositioned them as well as the lights all around the rotisserie with the bodyshell of the car on it, and the sawhorses on which the loose body panels were sitting. A quick check of the time; not too bad, she had only been talking for less than an hour so far. Still plenty of time before lunch to get some actual work done.
All the additional lights on the ceiling and in the walls were switched on. The extraction fans were switched on. The air compressor was checked, drained of condensation and set. Rolling tool chests were rolled into place, tools and sandpaper were laid out on them. The full helmet of the media blasting suit was checked, fresh filters were put in the respirator. And Missy took off her clothes and put them on a workbench in the adjacent hall, then put on the full helmet with ear protection, full face protection, respirator and fresh air supply.
The cameras and lights on the tripods were also switched back on, and the vanilla-hued mousette lifted the helmet to send the main camera a smile.
"Hey look, I'm a blurred blob now! That's right, I am now naked save for this helmet, and Youtube gets all in a tizzy over that because they seem to have never grasped the simple fact that nudism, is, natural. So, blurry blobmouse! But of course, in the video section of my own website, these videos are also available without any of the blurring." A cheery grin. "And yes, I hear several of you typing again already. Missy Missy! Why do this work naked? You said it's super dusty work, you'll get so dirty! That's exactly the reason, folks. The dust will get everywhere. But I will need to clean off this car in between passes of sanding, and shoot primer on it, and for that I will need to be dust-free myself as well. Even if I would put on a one-piece bodysuit, the dust would still get into my hair and my fur, and I would have to clean myself twice very thoroughly before shooting any primer. So why go through all that trouble when a good blast with compressed air and a good shower will take care of it as well? Besides, despite the fans and the AC in here, this work is hard and very hot as well, so it's just way more pleasant to do it naked. You'll have so much freer motion, you won't catch anything with sleeves or anything, and your clothes won't stick to your back and creep into your buttcrack from the sweating you'll be doing. Anyhoos and ways, enough procrastinating, let's finally get to work! Step one of stage one, forty grit on a DA sander to knock down the heaviest ripples and drips and smears in the patches of filler. Here we go!"
It was going to be a timelapse. Of course it was going to be a timelapse. It was such repetitive, and frankly boring, work. Nobody would want to watch it in real-time, for hours on end. Just the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, running the DA sander over the patches of body filler, back and forth, up and down, diagonally. Every so often stopping to wipe the dust off and check the progress, or pat the dust off the sanding disc, or change out the sanding disc for a new one. But aside from that, it was just the same, the same, the sa-a-ame.
Missy did address the main camera every now and then. Especially when she switched from using the DA sander to using the different types of sanding blocks, explaining how to hold them, how to make good passes without applying too much pressure, explaining how to cross-hatch, making diagonal passes one way, then going over them with diagonal passes the other way. Wiping off sanding dust, checking, feeling, repeating. Again, and again, and over, and again, and over. It was the kind of work one could only do properly for hours on end when one was passionate about their work.
Gradually, the light yellow mousette began to change color. Her fine, sleek pastel yellow fur became a chalky light yellow color blotched with patches of pastel yellow, then chalky yellow all over, and eventually a dusty white. Flecked with speckles of both black and a ruddy color, as the bare metal of the car's body and panels had been flash-rusting over the past few days, and that surface rust was also sanded right back off, along with all the black coating of the replaced quarter panels, the front fenders and the hood.
Clouds of dust flying, obscuring the view, being drawn into catch pans by the extraction fans. Even that dust was going to be recycled. Touching lightly over the patches of filler, feeling, looking closely, checking the progress with an expertise that came from years of experience and finely honed skill. More passes, more checks. More dust. Despite the extraction fans sucking the whirling clouds of dust into the catch pans, a fine layer of white dust slowly started covering everything in the hall. So about every ten minutes, the lenses of all the cameras got a little wipe with a micro-fiber towel as well.
As noon came around and it was time to stop for lunch, Missy was just about done with step two of stage two. She would still need to make a final pass over the whole car and all the loose body panels with one hundred and eighty grit sandpaper to do the final preparation before putting the car into primer. By that time, the vanilla-hued mousette was a dusty white color all over, except for her face, ears and part of her head which had been covered by the helmet and respirator.
It was a funny enough sight that Fanni, despite her mild blush over Missy's nudity, had to giggle slightly when she came to get Missy for lunch and the mousette took off the helmet and respirator.
"Ah... hee, eh... are we, uh, doing lunch, Missy? Or are you, uh, going to keep working?"
Missy stepped over to the workbench, took her phone, wiped the dust off it and checked it for the time.
"Hmm. Would you mind a late lunch, darling? It's ten to noon, and I just have one more pass to do with one-eighty, then I can blow off the thing, roll it into the paint booth and shoot a first layer of primer on it. That'll have to bake for an hour, so we can take an extra long lunch," she smiled.
"That, uh, that's fine, Missy," Fanni nodded with a smile. "How long will it take, do you think?"
"Hour, hour and a half," Missy shrugged with a smile.
"Okay, yes, good, that will, uh, give me some time to drill some more holes in those sheetpile panels," Fanni nodded, hiding a light chortle behind a paw. "You, uh... how are you going to get clean? You're a whole new color now, I, uh, hardly recognized you, hee."
"It's just dust, darling," Missy chortled, patting herself down and sending more clouds of dust flying. "Stand back and observe how quickly I will be back to my yellow self again."
She walked over to the side wall and the rear wall and cranked the extraction fans to their highest setting. Taking the air hose from the compressor, she increased the pressure of that to 100PSI and clipped an air gun with a long nozzle to the hose which she pointed at herself while standing by the extraction fans. PSSSSSSSSSSHHHT! Sleek fur rippled, large round ears and thin tail blew back and fluttered, a huge cloud of white dust filled the air. Up and down, along both arms, across the shoulders down the back, and just like that, the light yellow mousette was light yellow again and the insides of her ears as well as her bare-skinned tail were light pink again.
Shaking out her ruffled fur, Missy pointed the air gun at the bodyshell of the car as well and blew most of the dust from the surface and out of all the nooks and crannies on the inside. Fanni giggled lightly again, behind a paw she fully held over her muzzle against all the flying dust. Once the swirling clouds were mostly gone, Missy lowered the settings of the extraction fans again, but she did keep them running, and she also lowered the pressure of the air compressor back down.
"There we go," Missy chortled. "Simple as that, see? Of course I'll still need a shower to get all the dust out of all of my cracks as well, but I'll do that later once I'm done with the final step of sanding."
"Uh... ri-i-ight," Fanni said from behind her paw. "Well, I'll, uh, I'll get back to my work then, and I'll see you in, uh, an hour and a half? You'll be in, uh, the paint booth then, right?"
"That's right, darling," Missy nodded with a smile. "And how's your work going? Any reason you're drilling holes in that sheetpile wall?"
"Uh, yes, uh... I'm drilling holes along the top so I can loop a metal wire through them and tie a tightening eye to it," Fanni nodded. "That way, when I push those crooked spruce trees back upright, I can tie them off to make sure they stay upright, you know?"
"I suppose that's easier and quicker than hammering a post into the ground by each tree to support them with," Missy smiled. "But won't the wire cut into them when they grow? I've seen trees grow into chainlink fences and such, and it looks pretty wild."
"I put a rubber tree saver around the trunks under the wires, Missy," Fanni smiled. "That will, uh, prevent the wire from cutting into the trunk over time. Besides, by the time those trees have grown so much the pressure against the wires starts cutting into the trunks, they'll have, uh, established themselves solidly enough into that berm that I can cut and remove the wires and the trees will stay straight upright."
"Of course, you're the expert, I really just never seem to learn that, do I?" Missy chortled. "But anyways, go on and get back to your work, darling, and I'll get back to mine and see you in an hour and a half, okay?"
Fanni nodded with a smile and leaned into the hug Missy took her in for a few moments before leaving the building. Missy took the helmet again, cleaned the face shield, took the filters out of the respirator and blew them out with the air gun, lay them aside and put fresh filters in before putting the helmet back on her head. Turning back to the Chevelle's bodyshell and the loose body panels, the vanilla-hued mousette made another pass over everything with the long rubber blocks wrapped in 180-grit sandpaper, slowly, gently, carefully, cross-hatching, wiping, feeling, checking, cross-hatching some more.
Eventually satisfied with the result, Missy took the air gun again to blow off both herself and the panels and bodyshell of the car, this time taking some extra time to wiggle the long thin nozzle of the air gun into all the holes and crevices on the inside of the bodyshell and between the panels and braces to make sure all the dust had been blown out. All the loose panels were loaded onto a single dolly, which Missy rolled outside and into the washing station, followed by the rotisserie with the bodyshell on it so she could use the large pressure washer to thoroughly blast everything with copious amounts of water as well, after which another air gun with a long thin nozzle was used to blow all the water off the surface and out of the nooks and crannies and hidden areas between and behind the panels and braces.
Only when everything was perfectly dry again, the dolly and the rotisserie were rolled into the large paint booth that occupied one half of the large left-hand building behind the garage's main building. All the cameras were brought over and set up as well, but only a couple of the lights as the paint booth had panel-lights in three of the walls from the floor to the ceiling, and in the ceiling as well. Some time was taken to mix up a batch of high-build primer, mixing two parts gray with one part black and some reducer and hardener.
Before pouring the primer into the container that would clip onto the paint gun, Missy reached up and unclipped the small camera from the strap she was wearing around her head so she could point it at herself.
"Those were quite some timelapses, weren't they? And you've seen me do some things I can already hear the questions about. Why pressure-wash that car and use all that extra time to blow the water back off it and out of all those little holes and all? You have to, folks. We're at the point now where the first layer of primer can go on, so the car needs to be dust-free and clean. Yes, I blew it off with air to blow out all the dust, but some will always stay behind and you have to wash that out with water. But there's so many hollow spaces in the body of a car, so many nooks and crannies between all those panels and behind all those braces and what have you, so you have to make sure to blow out all that water as well. Because think about it; the paint gun works with air pressure as well, so when you spray paint or primer, you also blow a whole darn lot of wind against the car, and if there's any traces of water left, they will come out and ruin your work. Especially because you move the paint gun in so many angles and directions; it's amazing just how the laws of physics will make even the smallest traces of water come out of any hidden spots and ruin your work. Now, as we're about to go shoot some high-build primer here, let's take a moment to talk about paint guns and their tips."
First, Missy poured the primer she had mixed into the paint gun cup and screwed the lid onto it to keep it safe. Only then did she pan the small camera along the rack on the wall above the paint mixing bench and the rows of paint guns hanging from the rack, taking several of the guns to show them from closer by.
"Holy crap that's a lot of paint guns. Missy, why do you even have that many paint guns? Do you really use all of them? You betcha, folks. You may think that a paint gun is a paint gun is a paint gun, but there's plenty of differences that actually matter, and for a high-tier professional perfectionist like myself, they matter a lot." She took one of the paint guns that was a shiny purple in color. "So here we have your conventional high-pressure gun. This is the type of gun you mainly find in your auto parts store or paint store when you're looking to buy painting equipment. These work with pretty high pressure; between forty to sixty PSI. That's great for atomizing the paint, but it will cause a lot of overspray because you'll be blowing a whole lot of paint out of the gun. However, sometimes, that's just what you need, and with the proper amount of experience and skill, you can still minimize the amount of overspray." She took another gun from the rack. "Then we have these ones; this is an HVLP gun, which stands for High Volume, Low Pressure. They take a lot more air to the paint, but at a much lower pressure; generally between ten and thirty PSI, but they need a much higher CFM, or Cubic Feet per Minute, of air. That makes them perfect for spraying thicker paints, like this primer for instance. And then there's these." She took yet another gun from the rack, this time a deep red one with only one screw knob at the back instead of two. "This is an LVLP, or Low Volume, Low Pressure gun. Ideal for if you only have a small air compressor than can't deliver very high amounts of CFM and PSI, because these guns take a lot less air and work well at lower pressures, but that does also mean they don't really do very well with thicker paints like primer, latex paints or enamels. So you can see it's already very important to make sure to pick the proper gun for the type of paint you will be working with and the size of compressor you have."
Hanging the paint guns back on the rack, Missy pushed her rolling chair back a bit and opened a drawer of the workbench, panning the camera over it. The inside of the drawer had a grid in it, dividing it into numerous small squares, most of which had a small round cap in them with a finely finned screw ring and two flat legs in between which was a slightly raised section with a tiny hole in it, and all of which had a small label with numbers ranging from 1 to 2.5 via 0.1 increments.
"Ah, nozzles, I heard some of you say," Missy smiled as she pointed the camera back at herself. "Nope, you're wrong, these are not nozzles. Wait... yes, you, the fellow in the back there, what did you say? Tips. Ding ding ding! That is correct! These are paint gun tips. You might call them nozzles, but there's a difference, because a paint gun does also have a nozzle. But those are the long tube-like things in what you might call the barrel of the gun, and they have a needle in them, because they regulate the amount of air and paint that will flow through the gun. On the end of the nozzle is where you screw on one of these tips. And again, as you can see, I have a whole darn collection of them here in this drawer. Why so many? Well, they all have their own qualities, and you have to match them to the material you work with, the air pressure you have available, and the type of work you'll be doing. Those numbers you can see there..." She zoomed in on the labels for a moment. "That's size in millimeters. Anything of two millimeters and above is for thick materials, like high-build primer, sprayable filler or stuff like rubberized undercoating or bedliner. Those all need a large-size tip so it won't clog, because the material is so thick and often has solids in it. Between one and a half and two millimeters is the size you want for other types of primer, thicker paints like enamels and latex-based paint, and single-stage paint. The sizes from one point two to one point five are what I use for most any basecoat paint, and I sometimes go up to one point six or one point seven for metallic paints with a lot of flake in it, or with larger flake in it, again to prevent clogging and for an even distribution. The one, one point one and one point two millimeter tips are what I use for clearcoats. So, back to the guns, and let's talk overspray for a moment."
Closing the drawer, Missy clipped the smaller camera onto a small tripod sitting on the workbench and turned a bit in the chair to face the camera more directly.
"Overspray! We've all heard that word. But how many of you know what it actually means? I dare wager a lot of you will say you know, and I also dare wager most if not all of you are wrong. That's because of how the word is used. Imagine the scene; you buy an older car someone has worked on. You open the hood and look at the engine, and it looks really nice and fresh, because the block and the heads have been painted, let's say, blue. But there's also blue paint on the exhaust manifolds or headers, on the sparkplug wires, sometimes even on the spark plugs themselves. Ohmigosh, look at that overspray, you'll then say." She raised a finger at the camera. "Basically, that is correct. Some paint has been sprayed over parts it was not supposed to go on. But that is not what we professional painters mean when we use the term overspray. You can use the word to describe any paint that landed on areas or parts it was not supposed to go on, that's perfectly fine, but technically, overspray is all of the mist of paint that comes out of a paint gun and does not land on the panel you're painting, but it goes on the paper or plastic you masked the car off with, it goes on the tires, it goes on the lift if you're painting a car on a lift, it goes on the floor, it goes on the walls, it goes into the filters of the extraction system if you have one. High air pressure causes a very fine atomization of the paint, and the higher the pressure, the finer the atomization, or in simpler words; the finer the mist of paint, the more overspray you'll have. That's why I use HVLP paint guns, because they reduce the amount of overspray significantly. And in a business like mine, folks, that can add up quickly, let me tell you. Take the specialty garage where I used to work for almost two decades for instance. It started out as a specialty garage for Ferraris, and even though we took on more and more different makes of exotic cars and supercars and such, Ferraris remained the mainstay of the work we did there. So you can imagine we sprayed a lot of red paint. Now, let's say I have to paint a Ferrari hood. If I would use a regular high-pressure gun, that could waste up to fifty percent more paint as an HVLP gun would. For just one hood, that may not seem like much, but if you have to spray the same color over and over again on a lot of body panels, trust me, it makes a helluva difference if you have to buy ten gallons of the stuff in a month, or just five to seven gallons. It can add up that quickly, people." She laughed shortly. "To be fair, back then I didn't really care about that, because I was an employee, I was not paying for the paint. But now I'm on my own, I'm my own boss, and I do pay for the paint. So if I can reduce the amount of paint I have to buy simply by using a different type of paint gun, you betcha I will! Also, something I didn't have to bother with at my previous job, but which is a factor now that I run my own business, is that the HVLP guns seriously reduce my VOC emission." A playful grin. "Missy Missy! What the hell is... yeah yeah, calm down. Volatile, Organic, Compound, emissions. Automotive paint has solvents in it, reducer has solvents in it, activator has solvents in it, hardener has solvents in it. Chemical shit that has to flash off and gets blasted all into the air when you spray paint. Have you ever painted a car, or even just a single panel, in a small space like a garage or a small workshop with little to no ventilation, and you found yourself getting woozy from the stink? Yeah, that's because of the chemical solvents in the paint, the organic compounds that carry the pigment of the paint. And places like collision repair shops, bodyshops, custom build shops and restoration shops like mine have to adhere to very strict environmental regulations concerning the emissions we release. The HVLP paint guns reduce those emissions significantly." She tilted her head a bit with an ear perked straight up and grinned again. "Ah, Black Betty, I know you watch my videos, and that's a very good point you brought up there. Waterborne paint, Missy! Yes indeed, that is getting more and more common; automotive paints that use water instead of chemical solvents to carry the pigment particles. There's plenty of advantages to that. For one, obviously, it has much less chemicals so it's much safer to people and the environment. It also dries a lot quicker, there's much less chemicals that need to flash off, so that can also be an advantage. However, solvent-based paint has advantages as well. For instance, it's much easier to mix and blend to make custom colors. My Mousie Motorworks Yellow is pretty easy to mix with solvent-based paint, but way, way harder with waterborne paint. Not impossible, but definitely a lot harder. And then I'm not even mentioning the specialized mixes you need for pearl or candy finishes; solvent-based paint is still pretty much the go-to there. Also, solvent-based paint, for now, still gives a much better protection to environmental influences for a longer time. Waterborne paint is getting there in durability, but it still has a ways to go. So while I prefer to use waterborne paints as much as possible, sometimes I just have to use solvent-based paints to get the result I need. So, with all that said; back to the paint guns!"
She stood up from the chair and reached up, taking a black paint gun with a silver stripe over the side from the far end of the rack which she held out to the camera.
"This here is a high-flow HVLP paint gun, and it's the one I use exclusively for high-build primer. It has a wide-bore nozzle with a narrow needle for maximum flow rate, larger passages, and it takes tips from two up to two and a half millimeters. And it's black with a stripe so I know exactly what it's used for." She pointed at the rack. "See, over there all the way at the end? There's another black gun over there, and it's fully black. That's the one I use exclusively for undercoating, it has a full-open nozzle without needle, and since undercoating is black, the gun I use for it is black. Now, you don't have to get a different gun for each type of paint you spray. Quite frankly, that's a bit ridiculous; you can easily get by with just one paint gun and a handful of different tips, that's way plenty for spraying most kinds of primer, topcoat paint and clearcoat. You just have to clean the gun very thoroughly and put the proper tip on depending on what kind of paint you're going to be spraying. But in a business like mine, where I use a lot of different types of paint in fairly high quantities because I fully restore, and therefore usually fully repaint entire cars, it's handier to have different guns for different types of paint, because I do a lot of cars and this just cuts down on set-up time and cleaning time. Like right now; I'm going to lay down a coat of high-build primer on the Chevelle. And I can just grab my high-build primer gun, without having to think about making sure it has the right nozzle in it for that thick paint full of solids, if the passages are wide enough so they won't clog, if it will take the proper tip, because I know this specific gun is set up for high-build primer specifically. So let's screw on a... hmmm, let's say a two point two millimeter tip, let's check this primer here that I mixed a bit ago..." She picked up the cup and swirled it. "Yep, still fine, and as you can see it's quite dark gray because I mixed some black into it. Let's put it on this gun, and I will see you inside the booth in a moment. I already have set up the air compressor and laid out everything, so I just have to get into my paint suit. Just a sec, folks!"
Missy screwed the cup onto the top of the paint gun and set it upright in a small stand. A moment or two was taken to hoist herself into a thin, full-body paint suit that covered her from her feet all the way up to over her head, and another full-face helmet with ear protection, eye protection and respirator was put on. Taking the paint gun into the spray booth, the vanilla-hued mousette again set it in a small stand and stepped over to a back corner of the booth, picking up two air hoses. Both were clipped to the belt of the paint suit, one was clipped to the helmet, the paint gun was clipped onto the end of the other one.
Holding the helmet lifted up a bit, Missy walked through the booth to switch on all the cameras and the extra lights. She did lower the helmet back down so it covered her face before she turned to the main camera and held up her free paw, sounding quite muffled as she spoke from behind the helmet.
"Take me to your leader, earthlings. Yep, no need to blur out my naked self anymore, because now I'm an alien blobmouse! It's time to finally shoot some paint onto this thing, but before I do that, a little more explanation." A light, muffled chortle. "Don't worry, I promise it's really just a little bit. Thing is, as you can see, I didn't mask anything off on the car, yet I will only be spraying this dark primer on a part of it, that being the windshield pillars, the roof and the sail panels. And no, I don't care about overspray into the inside of the car - and in this case I do mean overspray in the way most everyone uses that term, so any of the dark paint landing on the inside of the car or lower on the panels I'm actually aiming to cover. It's just primer, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it goes on flat, because it's the base foundation the topcoat will sit on. So while this car is on a rotisserie, I'm not gonna tilt it sideways to spray the roof, I'm gonna stand on something to reach the roof from above because it needs to stay flat. Just so you folks know. And I will be tilting the car when I spray the inside, because in there it matters a whole lot less as there will be a headliner and other upholstery covering most of the paint. So, finally, enough talking; here we go!"
Back in the rear corner of the booth, she switched on the air compressor and extraction fans, took a few moments to regulate the air pressure with the regulator on the gun, and sprayed at a sheet of cardboard a couple of times in short bursts, turning the screw knobs on the back of the gun little bits and doing another burst of spray or two.
"As you can see, the pattern changes when I turn these knobs," she explained in a muffled tone from behind the face shield of the helmet. "This is a first layer of high-build primer, so I need a good and also wide coverage, so I'm setting this thing to a wide fan. And here, see?" She squeezed the trigger briefly a time or two and pointed at the jets of gray mist shooting out. "Overspray. So let's start actually putting this on the car instead of in the air."
Stepping over to the rotisserie, Missy started on one of her favorite dances. Holding the paint gun in her right paw, and the air hose in her left paw even though it was also clipped to the belt of her paint suit, tilting the paint gun this way and that while making quick, short swoops upwards along the pillars of the windshield opening. Covering them on both the inside and the outside, doing a swoop along the bottom of the roof's edge at the top of the windshield opening, tiptoeing like a ballerina alongside the side of the car to make passes along the left side edge of the roof. A swoop along the inside of the rear curve of the quarter window, several more, longer swoops along the edges of the rear window opening.
After a full round around the car's bodyshell, the vanilla-colored mousette stepped onto a low, long mini scaffold at the side of the car. Standing on tippy-toes, leaning over, stretching out her right arm while holding the air hose away from the bodyshell with her left paw, she started making passes over the roof of the car, from the back to the front, from the front to the back, half overlapping each pass. Back and forth, back and forth, and significantly, not letting go of the paint gun's trigger to stop the spray whenever she reached past the front or the rear edge. Again, again, and again, gradually covering the dull bare metal and the light grayish white spots and streaks of filler in a smooth, uniform dark gray color, from the middle of the roof towards the left edge. Stepping off the mini scaffold then and making shorter, quicker passes back and forth over the area between the rear side window and the rear window; the sail panel she had referred to.
Moving the mini scaffold to the other side with a foot. Climbing back on, standing on tippy-toes and leaning over with outstretched right arm again. Repeating the process, smooth passes back and forth, from front to back, from back to front, half overlapping each other, from the middle of the roof to the right edge. Off the mini scaffold, doing the shorter passes back and forth over the right rear sail panel, down to the line of the rear side window opening and the rear window opening, just as on the other side.
There was a little bit of the thick dark gray primer left in the gun's cup. It went onto the inside section below the windshield, where the dashboard would sit on, and partly down over the inside of the firewall. As the gun ran out of paint, Missy stepped back to the left side of the booth, increased the air pressure, gave the gun a couple of short blasts, then unclipped it from the hose and hung it from the short rail on the inside of the booth's wall, and lifted her helmet a bit again to look at the main camera.
"Already looks a bunch better, don't it? And this is just the start, folks. Now, normally, this is where you take your gun to the mixing table and clean it because we're done with this color, but I won't this time. Even though the rest of the primer I'll be spraying onto this car is the beige color, it's still the same high-build primer. And as I said before; it doesn't really matter if it mixes a bit. I can start on the floor of the car to blow out the last of the dark gray mixed with the beige, because the floor is gonna get a coat of black undercoating later. So heckity, I'm not even gonna clean out the cup! I'm just gonna mix up a batch of beige primer, and pour it right into that very same cup that just now held dark gray primer." She shot a cheerful grin from under the lifted helmet. "Also, yeah, I sprayed the last of the dark gray primer on where the dash is gonna sit. For one, I needed to get rid of the last bit of primer, for another, I'm gonna be putting in a blue dash, and actually paint that whole metal bracing section in blue as well, even though the whole rest of the inside of the car is going to be pastel yellow. I want a nice light inside so it feels airy and spacious, but a dark dash is always the best option, folks. Sure, a white or cream-colored or pastel yellow dashboard might look really nice and fit really well with the interior you might put in the car, but a light color is not a good option. A dark color is much better, to reduce glare from the sun and reflections and everything. So in this car; blue dash, pastel yellow interior with blue accents. But anyhoos and way, let me go mix up some beige primer. Be back in a flash, folks!"
She took her helmet all the way off and hung it from a hook on the paint booth wall after unclipping the air hose from it. The cameras were left running while the light yellow mousette stepped out of the booth with the paint gun, because mixing a new batch of primer only took a few moments. She did mix a larger batch, filling the paint cup all the way to the brim and even mixing two more full cups of the beige-colored high-build primer which she let sit on the workbench with a sheet of cardboard over them.
Back inside the paint booth, helmet back on, air supply reconnected, paint gun with full cup clipped to the other air hose, Missy pulled the pin from the rotisserie so she could spin the car over to the right, but not fully on its side, then putting the pin back in to lock the rotisserie. And the dance began once more. Spraying the entire inside of the bodyshell, tilting the gun this way and that to spray into all the openings in and between and behind the braces on the inside of the sail panels, under and along the package tray, at the wheel tubs, in the trunk, and below the windshield. Making long, smooth, overlapping passes back and forth over the inside of the ceiling, moving to the other side to make similar long overlapping passes over the floorpan.
Hanging the paint gun from a hook on her paint suit's belt so she could turn the rotisserie again, putting the bodyshell back upright. Making more overlapping passes over the inside of the bodyshell, on both sides. Over the firewall. All through the inside of the trunk. Then dancing around the rotisserie to make passes over the outside of the car, from below the rear side window opening down. Door apertures, rocker panels, deck filler panel, rear bumper filler panel, the rear valance, the front of the firewall. Dancing around the metal stands on which the doors were sitting upright, the front fenders were sitting upright, the hood, the decklid, the front valance panels were laying. Pass after overlapping pass, smooth, steady, flowing, covering every inch of dull bare metal and grayish white patches and streaks of body filler in a matte sandy beige color.
Less than an hour and a half had passed when the vanilla-hued mousette was done. She still had some time left to address the main camera again, unclipping the air hose and taking off her protective helmet with respirator.
"And now it looks even better! You can already see more or less what it will look like in its final two-tone color scheme. But Missy Missy, I already hear you again. You didn't paint the underside of the hood or the decklid, or the inside of the doors! Of course I didn't, the stands are in the way, duhh. Besides, those areas only need one or two coats of regular primer, because it's the undersides and insides of those body panels. I'm going to lunch now, when I get back this will be dry so I can turn the hood, the decklid, the doors and the fenders over on those stands, and shoot some regular primer on the undersides and insides of them, okay?" A quick, cheery wink. "I mean, come on, you've seen me do this several times before now, you should know by now that I'm a very skilled professional and I darn well know what I'm doing. Anyways, as I said, I'm gonna have lunch now. It's already well past lunchtime, but I wanted to get this done first, because now this can dry and bake while I'm out chomping on some food, and it'll be dry and cured when I come back so I can move right on along with the next stage of sanding down this primer. So see y'all in a bit, folks!"
One, two three... editing point. Missy switched off all the cameras and the lights, took the paint gun and stepped out of the paint booth. She meticulously cleaned out the paint gun, took off her paint suit, turned it inside out and hung it from a corner of the rack with all the cans of paint in it, locked and secured the paint booth and took a moment at the control panel to key in and activate the baking cycle.
Stepping out of the building naked, the vanilla-colored mousette gave herself a quick, light shake and smiled as she spotted Fanni appearing from around the corner of the storage building. They walked into the main building, and Missy had a quick shower in the washroom of the personal room while Fanni retrieved her clothes from the bodywork hall. A quick trip into town in the blue 1962 Ford Falcon so they could have a late lunch at The Patty Place, taking their time to enjoy the food and stretching out the time with some cheerful smalltalk with the friendly, somewhat chubby Pinyon mouse woman Patty who ran the diner together with her hamster husband Harvey.
All in all, it was an hour and eighteen minutes before they were back at Missy's garage. Fanni got back to the work she had been doing, Missy rolled the dolly and the rotisserie back into the bodywork hall, moved over the lights and cameras as well, and also returned to her work. A quick explanation of what she was going to do to the main camera, a guide coat of black paint sprayed all over the car, and off came the clothes and out came the DA sanders and the blocks again.
This time, the light yellow mousette gradually changed color to a dull, dirty tan. She worked quick, she worked hard, yet she worked meticulously. It took hours, it was tedious, but strangely enough, Missy loved it. It was almost like giving a close friend a good massage. Rubbing firmly, touching lightly. Running her fingers over the body of the car ever so gently had an almost... sensuous quality to it.
The guide coat revealed several low areas. Sanding until those were gone went right through the coat of primer in some areas. Skim coats of filler were applied to those areas, more sanding, another coat of high-build primer in the two different colors as well as a coat of regular primer in the same beige color applied to the undersides of the hood and deck lid and the insides of the doors, another hour of baking in the paint booth - that was the dullest part, but it was filled with doing preparations for other work. Boxes of parts had been delivered, they were unpacked and the parts laid out in the clean-room for building the engine the next day.
Another guide coat again, of powder this time. A hose with a small spray pistol added to the collection of tools. All the loose body panels actually attached to the car now. More hours of sanding, wet now. Hour after hour, step after step, from rougher to lighter sandpaper.
Fanni had long since finished her work for the day. She parked her pickup truck in the warehouse building and hung around, watching Missy work and puttering around the garage a bit to do a spot of cleaning up. Watering the plants in the office, on the mezzanine and in the personal room, collecting empty boxes, using one to collect empty water and juice bottles and cans in so they could be returned to the store. She even helped in the bodywork hall, collecting all the spent sheets and discs of sandpaper in an empty box, as the wet-sanding meant there no longer was a huge cloud of dust hanging in the hall.
It was actually dark outside by the time Missy was finally done with all her sanding work. She cleaned the whole car off thoroughly again and rolled it back into the paint booth. The doors, the deck lid, the hood and front fenders all came off again, and this time, she masked off areas of the car and sprayed two coats of a thick, semi-gloss undercoating with rubber particles in it on both the inside and outside of the floorpans, the front of the firewall and the undersides of the wheel tubs.
Finally all done, the vanilla-colored mousette took off her protective helmet and respirator, pulled the hood of the paint suit off her head and large round ears and turned to the main camera sitting on a tripod in the paint booth.
"And there we have it, folks! Yes, as you saw, I put on the undercoating already, because I much rather have a touch of yellow overspray on that than having rubberized black overspray on my light yellow body color. Besides, this stuff needs to cure for hours, the primer even needs to cure for days as I mentioned before, and now I can just let it sit right here in the paint booth while I go home and get some sleep, because it's gosh darn twenty past eleven in the evening already! But this has been a very good day, because the car is now ready for actual paint! Whoohoo and all that!" She sent the camera a wide, cheery smile. "If you made it all the way here to the end of the video; oh my gosh, thank you so much for toughing it out through all my talking! I talk way too much when I'm explaining something, I know it, especially when it's something I'm a master at. But thank you so very much for sticking with me, and I promise I will do my very best to talk a whole lot less in the next video! Although in the next video, I will be building the motor, so I will still have to do a lot of talking to explain a lot of things. But hey, look at the bright side; if you make it through that, then afterwards you can build an engine yourself as well! So again, thank you all so very much for sticking with me all through this video, go and get yourselves a stiff drink because you deserved it, and I'll see y'all next time, in the next episode, right here at Mousie Motorworks! Tata now, see ya!"
One, two, three... ending point. The cameras and lights were shut off and carried out of the paint booth, the paint booth was closed, the baking cycle set, the building locked. The paint suit was taken off, turned inside out and hung from a hook. The cameras were set to empty out their filled SD cards onto the external hard drives of the editing laptop in the office. The bodywork hall was cleaned and swept, all the tools put away. The naked vanilla-hued mousette did a last round through the buildings and over the premises, switched off lights and locked doors, and got into the passenger's seat of the Ford Falcon to let Fanni drive her home because her arms and shoulders were about on fire from all the sanding work.
A last drink and quick snack for the night. A refreshing shower to get rid of sweat, grime, and all the sanding dust that was still lodged in certain anatomical areas. A quick stint in the dryer booth, a content flopping onto her bed to let Fanni rub her back a bit, and to eventually snuggle up close and comfortable together for a good night of sleep.
What an incredibly long day it had been! But with such an amazing amount of actual visual progress!
