Carl's and Phil's Mk4 Body Work and Paint

[hineas]

EDIT: are you here to decide if you want to do your own body work? Read my thoughts on doing my own body work and paint on this thread.


My brother and I built a Mk4 Roadster together. Here is our build thread. We started in February 2021. The car was registered in December 2021. Since that time, we have put about 6,000 miles on it. It has been a joy to drive and has exceeded our expectations so far.

Now that the driving season is over for the year, we figured we would tackle the body work. I know this is a big project, but it is something we want to do. Before deciding if this was something we really wanted to do, I ended up repainting the hood on my Jeep Cherokee. I take the Jeep off road and felt that it was a good test vehicle. I stripped it down to bear metal, smoothed it out with some Rage Gold, and painted it. It turned out nearly perfect. I know the Mk4 is a different beast, but at least I knew I could get a good quality paint job if I take my time and am willing to spend time fixing my mistakes. Here is a picture of my Cherokee hood after it was painted:

20201112_125357.jpg

hood.jpg

hood 2.jpg

I went to the local body shop and bought supplies. Wow, prices have gone up. I bought a gallon of Rage Gold, a quart of HSRF, a bunch of good quality sand paper, a pad of mixing sheets, etc. They threw in a few dozen rubber spreaders at no charge. I already own some sanding equipment and sanding blocks. Hopefully I don't have to buy those, but mine are moderately rigid so I may need something more flexible. I have seen people mention using pool noodles to sand the curves, maybe I'll use one of those.

I have 2 weeks off starting on Monday. I hope to be able to start the body work then. I hope to have the body work done by spring so we can paint when it starts warming up.

First order of business starting next week is to clean 6,000 miles of grime and bugs off the car (don't worry, we have cleaned it recently). Once that is done I'll sand down the parting lines and start shaping those.

This is a huge undertaking, and I hope it goes well. Wish us luck!!!