Strip?

Voxy - still conservative! After many many hours of thinking and.. I've decided to just give Voxy a washover instead of a full strip to metal restoration. This is mainly due to the following:

1. Time constraints - stripping her to metal would take a longer time for this project to complete and since I am doing this part-time (after work, during the weekends, during Sick Leaves). I wanted to finish as soon as possible. I can't stand the thought of not being to use her for a long time :)

2. Experience - since this is going to be my first time to paint an entire car, I am somewhat concerned that my skillset is still limited. Stripping her of the old paint would require me to apply body filler to make sure that the body lines are still there and based on what I've encountered on my past projects - filler work and sanding it down is hard work!

3. Budget concerns - :)

I've had a lot of painting DIY projects over the years but this is the first time that I would be painting something this big and this valuable :) But the steps are still the same - you prepare the surface, mask everything that needs to be covered, prime, paint and then top coat - sound easy right - but believe me - this is easier said than done.

Started by removing all the loose paint and rust on Voxy's roof. I've noticed that it already had a lot of bubbles in the paint and they had to be removed. I've used a variety of scrapers to make the job easier.

 See how badly damaged the paint on Voxy's roof has become.

 After scraping it off - time to sand the surface to roughen it up and prepare it for the filler - used 120 and 280 grit sand paper for this.

A good Volkswagen paint job requires the fenders to be removed - all 4 of them. They are held in place by 10 bolts per fender - 40 bolts for all 4. Rusted bolts are difficult to remove but with some WD-40, hammer, vice grip, pliers, a ton of wrenches, nothing is impossible to remove.REMINDER: Patience is a must for this kind of project, make sure you bring lots of it. After removing the fenders - it was depressing to see that some of the parts near the running boards have already been badly damaged - set them aside first while figuring out how I'll fix them.

Started preparing the hood...

Sanding is a critical part of painting a car and you better get used to it. :) You will be sanding down the car's surface after every step and it gets monotonous borderine boring at times. But again - patience is critical!

After this - time to apply some body filler :)