Hello,

Well it's been a while, haven't had much time to work on my website, so I thought I'd post a thing or two here on the '66 LTD.

I ran hard into the learning curve (more like wall) on body work and painting. Fortunately I have a good friend who does this for a living. His cars, body work and painting are really a sight to behold. I was lucky enough for him to show me how to prep and paint using the materials and techniques he and the place he works for uses. Tis an education I put into practice.

In past years I just stumbled, fumbled my way through any painting, really sort of clueless. Now I have a good plan for any panel, from metal work to filler to paint.

I had to invest in tools, he was nice enough to lend me his till I procured copies of his tools. Only the self welding dent puller left to acquire.

One thing I did do on my own and off the beaten path (from an auto body standpoint) was buy a turbine spray system, verses my cheapy DeVilbiss Starting line brand compressor/tank fed guns I had before.

The biggest concern I had was painting large sections of the car that wouldn't obviously fit in my little cheapy paint booth I had constructed. I didn't want to spend weeks cleaning the hanger from over spray.

With that I had bought the Fuji Q5 Platinum turbine system and a few assorted tips in different sizes.

Bit of learning curve there getting used to that. For instance instead of normally spraying colour base at 20-25 PSI on a piston compressor fed HVLP gun, this is spraying at 4 PSI. Or for in the case of clear and primer (thicker), I'd be at around 30 PSI on the conventional gun and I'm at 7-9 PSI.

As you can imagine much much much less over spray and at 4 PSI the transfer efficiency is ridiculously high. The big problem I noticed with the turbine systems is that no one seems to be using it for automotive work. It's either woodworking, interior painting or aircraft painting, so there is no real examples to read upon.

With the help of my friend and probably chewing through a few hundred dollars worth of primer, colour and clear to practice with I think I have it dialed in and have a pretty good feeling for the gun, cap and settings.

I have some pictures of the painted front passenger door to the LTD. Now the colour is the original '66 Sauterne Gold only thing I had Napa add more metallic than factory for more pizazz and for some reason the camera has a heck of a time with capturing it. It really doesn't look like what you'd see in person. These are the best pictures I could get. I'm using a Nikon D5500 body with a Nikon 18-55mm lens. I might try another camera. We did a spray out on this colour and a dark lavender metallic and it had no problems with the dark lavender metallic, it looks exactly the same in person. This colour just comes alive in the sunlight.

Now the rest of the body work is a doddle.

Cheers