Getting The Mustang Prepped and Ready For Primer and Paint

In past videos we’ve demonstrated how to locate and repair dents, disassemble parts, and apply and block body filler.  Now we are ready to apply glaze to minor imperfections, featheredge the damage areas, and final sand the remaining paint surface.

Applying Glaze Putty

We removed some of the dents using a dolly and blocked the paint on many of the dents.  However, there were a few that still needed some filling before priming.  The imperfections were not bad enough to apply body filler, but too bad to prime and block.

In these cases, glaze putty comes in handy.  The good thing about glaze putty is that it can be applied over sanded paint, body filler, or metal.  Although glaze putty is not designed to be applied as thick as body filler.  Body filler can be up to 1/4 inch, while glaze putty should be applied no more than 1/8 inch.

Anywhere surface that glaze putty is going to be applied should be sanded with 180 grit sandpaper or courser.  This can be done using a DA or by hand.  So we went around and applied putty to all the areas that needed and blocked sanded the areas using 180 grit sandpaper on a block.

Featheredging

The body work in now complete so we need to minimize the sand scratches.  To so this we used 220 grit on a DA sander.  This is the process of removing scratches, layering the paint layers to provide a level surface, rock chips, etc.  It’s best not to use an interface pad when feather-edging, as it will not level as well.

Final Sand

Once the body work areas have been featheredged, now we prepped the remaining paint surface using 500 grit sandpaper on a DA.  When final sanding a interface pad should be used to prevent sanding marks.   Final sanding is the last sanding steps before spraying, so make certain there are no un-sanded areas during this step.  Depending on the paint system your using and preference, final sanding is done using 400 to 600 grit sandpaper.  We use 500 on a DA sander, but you can also wet sand, it just takes a little longer.  It may be necessary to hand sand some of the edges and hard to get areas.  We used a red scotch-brite to scuff those areas to assure we will have proper adhesion.

Sanding Jambs

We are painting the inside jambs on this Mustang so all jambs must be sanded as well.  Be certain to properly clean the jambs with soap and water and clean with wax and grease remover thoroughly before sanding.  Areas such as hinge pillars are prone to getting silicones and other contaminates trapped on the surface and may be difficult to get clean.  After washing the jambs we even used wax and grease remover using a scotch brite to loosen up and remove the dirt and grime.  After cleaning them we used 500 grit sandpaper and hand sanded the jambs.  However, there are a lot of hard to get areas so we used a red scotch-brite to make sure we scuffed the paint surface.