I got the car to the painter on Wednesday, October 27,1999.   Classic Restorations in Apex NC did the final painting and finessing of the finish.  Dan Swann, the owner, is a friend through our church, and he agreed to paint the car and do whatever I requested on a per-hour basis.  This was great, since I wanted to minimize the amount of cash I put into the work.  I'll give a breakdown later of the costs.

When Dan looked over the car, he pointed out a few areas of orange peel in the primer.  I wet sanded those spots, and used a scotchbrite pad to wipe the car down and remove any overspray and sanding residue that was on the surface.  The target was to have the car painted by 5:00 that afternoon.  Unfortunately Dan couldn't get access to the paint booth he uses (his is under construction, since he just moved his shop to a new building).  He had his guys build a temporary booth in the shop using 2x4s and plastic sheeting.  They attached 2 furnace filters and used fans to pull a negative pressure in the booth.  They mounted florescent lights all along the outside, and it worked out beautifully.  Here's what it looked like:

pic of booth to come

They finally finished shooting the car at 10:00 that night!  I went by the next morning, and look what I found.....

(pics to come....)
 

There was a very small amount of dust nibs, and two tiny runs in the clear which they plan to sand and buff out.  Here's a breakdown of the total cost of the paint job:

• paint stripper - $80
• media blasting aluminum parts - $75
• body repair tools materials - $140
• Sherwin Williams epoxy primer - $100
• Sherwin Williams Ultra7000 base/clear - $200
• Classic Restorations labor (15 hours at $45 per hour) - $675

Moving on, for the pictures and details of the  Final Assembly