Hi
Thanks the posts and encouragement. Lots of stuff I could post, but thought I might go through the painting of the body of the TCS. I have come to the conclusion that painting a fibreglass shell is an art rather than a science! I have learned a few new tricks to try and get it flat, happy to share these if useful to some - welcome other ideas too. All the paint is period cellulose and standard Lotus colour.
So the pics show the shell as I got it, the car was partly restored and the seller had done a pretty good job on the body - stripping it and first level prep. I flatted it out as much as I could using a light guide coat and spent ages in completing the mods he had done to the sills.
Then in next pics, two coats of grey primer and a full rub down, this bought out loads of flaws and thousands of pinholes. More grey primer coats until happy with the result. I dry rubbed down at each pair of coats - very dusty! Then onto two coats of white primer - thinner coats, but a spraying yellow i wanted a light base. More rubbing down and filling flaws and pinholes. All rubbed down with 360 grade.
Then onto the colour, spraying all the shuts first with attention to the edges. Two coats and a wet rubdown with 600 - this took ages to get right, then two more coats and fixing of a few problem areas, mainly some runs and uneven areas.
This where I am at now - it will get another rubdown, this time 800 grade before hopefully the final 2 coats - just think I am going to struggle with getting the temperature up to 20C in the spray area, so it might have to wait for warmer times - we will see.
