Video Transcript

Hi guys, I'm Sam. And I'm Nate. And we're about ready to paint the front end of his car.

All right guys, it is Friday, March 14th. Nathan and I, next Saturday we're taking this thing to Bug Bloom. Hopefully, the painted front end will be done tomorrow afternoon depending on the weather, and if not, Sunday, this front end will be orange. As it sits now, we've got everything sanded down to 320 grit. Just did some last-minute touch-ups on some spots where I didn't like how many pinholes or cracks or otherwise were poking through. Oh yeah, this too, this had gotten a major rock chip at some point in its life. This front end was on a race car, so a chance it just picked up a rock and put a really good chip in here. It had actually cracked and split the fiberglass right there, so laid some more kitty hair in there, got that guy reinforced and then touched up over, and we're going to just hope for the best. I've got that repaired and I brought that lip up so it's level with the body line.

So much better. Yeah, now we've got this body line all the way across into the hood. Good fitment for a Baja Bug. Nathan, how do you like it? I think it's a lot better now. It's like, think it's a lot better now. I think so too. It's like it used to be down like here. Yeah, it was almost literally on top of this bolt and now it's up to the body line where it goes. Yep. We got a couple chips here across the top of that, we'll have to brush that up. But this was such expensive paint.
I know! It's so expensive paint, we have to go through and strip the whole car and repaint everything. I know. Or we can just get a brush and touch it up, it's fine since we have a whole container right there.

We've got both sides looking about the same. We've got a nice even body gap pretty much across the back. That does it for tonight. I just think these tires were on a race car too. Those tires were on a race car. And those tires were on a race car. Race car tire. Race car tire. Race car front end. Race car, Nathan. Everything’s race car. We're going to keep on building the car. We're almost done with the paint, but not quite. So we're going to do some more sanding and some more filling and whatnotss and so forth and primer on this thing tomorrow and hopefully paint depending on weather.

I spent most of the day working on the outside of that, trying to fill all those pinholes, and I just, no matter how much I tried with the glazing putty, I just couldn't find everything. So sprayed everything in primer. That identified like 1,000 pinholes, which at least I know where they're at. And then I went through and I also painted the backside of the hood black while I was waiting for the black to dry before I can flip the hood over so I can go through and start filling in all those pinholes. I filled in some holes on the fenders, these again were the original front fenders from this car we repurposed into rear fenders, and I welded in a couple patches. Just got to go through and grind those down. Those will get a skim coat of filler and then these things will be ready for primer and paint, both sides done. With luck, hopefully tomorrow, as long as the weather holds out, we should be able to spray at least the front end. I can go to the show with bare metal rear fenders, but I definitely want that hood to match the body before we go to the show. If that means I got to take a day off during the week, I'll do that. Hopefully that won't be the case. I'm going to keep on working on this and the hood. Hopefully tomorrow be spraying some more orange. Hopefully I learned something from the first time I sprayed this paint. And wow, it is getting windy. I better get to that hood before it blows off the table. Woo.

And we're about ready to paint the front end of his car. Um, I'm about ready to mix up some more paint. Fenders are still waiting, we'll get to those. But that front end is the most important thing. Over here, we've got the front hood. It's as good as we're going to make it. It's a Baja Bug. It's got pinholes, it's got stuff, but whatever, we just want it to be orange. Even if it's half as better as the rest of the car, it's still going to look fine. It's a Baja one-piece front end. It's fiberglass. It's fiberglass. It ain't perfect. It's old. It's been repaired. At the end of the day, it has a better fit. At least it fits good. Yeah, it fits good and it's pretty dang good anyways. And from here, the body looks just fine. Like it doesn't matter how filled it is, it looks completely.. In the sun, the Baja Bug is fine. Yeah. Or in the garage. Or in the garage, it looks fine too.
Like we say, it's a good 10-footer, except it's even good at about 6 feet. So I'm going to make up some paint and I'll probably set up a tripod and we'll see you guys watch me paint.

Actually, the body painting video was dropped. Huh? Oh yeah, that’s right, March 14th, Pi Day.
I think, I didn't even put that two and two together. On National Pi Day, 3.14, the video of that car being painted dropped. Obviously today being 3.16, John 3:16, and we're about ready to paint the hood. Trying to think in actual time how many weekends ago was, did we paint the, that was the end of last month we painted this car, right? So two weeks ago? Three weekends ago?
Yeah, we'll figure it out. Yeah, anyway. Yeah.

All right, so here goes everything on the hood.

That's good enough for our first coat. I see a whole bunch of pinholes that I missed, but again, we're not going for perfection.

Coat number two.

That's two sprays, that’s all she’s got. And honestly, I think that’s all I’m going to go with.
I think that will do.

Wow. So is that pretty much good to go then? Uh, yeah. Once it’s dried, we’re going to, we’re going to let it roll. Perfect. And it looks almost the same amount of orange peel, which is perfect.
Yep, so it’s going to all blend in. What’s the line, Nathan? Good and rough, good enough.
That’s right. Well, it’s good that it’s good and rough, 'cause it’s going to blend with that. Honestly, it’s better to have it this way than a perfect paint job, 'cause now instead of going slow saying, "Oh I don't want a scratch on this," it’s just like, "Oh go straight through, who cares?" Just go to Tractor Supply Co, pick up a rattle can, and then just touch it up. You like it? Yeah, it’s awesome. Perfect.

Like at first I was like, the white, I’m used to the white, I’m not so sure about orange. And now that it’s orange it just looks awesome. I mean of course it’s not the car yet, but I just love orange.
So that works. Yeah. Well, I got the fender blazing. Nice that it’s self-leveling. Yeah. Mix up some more. Yeah, it’s, it’s this stuff right, blazing putty. Yeah. All right, make sure to mix that or clean that board up real quick. We’re going to keep working on these rear fenders and hopefully, with luck, we’ll get them sprayed today too.

All right, Nathan wants to do all the work on these rear fenders and I’m okay with that. So, 'cause that means that you don’t have to do all the work? Well, not that. But it just means that you can have some pride in your own car because you did all the work.

So he’s going to work on these. I’m going to work on cleaning up the paint gun, and once that hood is dry, we’ll set it in place.

That might be a two-person job to get this guy on there. There we go. Wow. Oh my gosh dude. Orange Baja, that is insane looking. Oh my gosh. Now I just got to bolt it on and go drive. Beautiful. Yeah, very Baja. Can’t wait to get the fenders painted now. Well that’s you buddy. And also the lights in so it really looks like, that is all you.

These are the fenders, that’s what we’ve been working on. These are the back. The back is, oh my gosh, just look at that. Wow, that is very, that’s my car. That is very Baja. Can’t touch this.

Guess dry a little bit more into before, it’s the moment of truth. Nathan’s gonna spray his fenders. Hold up real quick. I know when I was cleaning it I probably had that wide open.
Yeah. Okay, spray it out and get a pattern. See where we’re at. Bit less, right? Now. All right. A little bit more. All right.

Nathan, start at the side, I would shoot here, there, and then finish that one, and then start this and then this way. But that’s just me. Like that. Yep, that’s up higher. And then this guy, I go around. Make sure you got good, There. Yep. And then, and the same thing over here.

I’d do a little bit right through here, oh where you got spotlight right there. Oh, that’s fine.
Oh, well it’s a little thin on this one. Yeah, I’d go back and forth.

This one, a little bit more on the edge, that edge looks pretty thin. All right, how’s this guy look?
Add a little bit more on the edge as well. All right, that’s good enough for the first coat. Hit it.

I would go, hold on, hold on, I would go here, and then just go side to side, side to side.
Overlap, about a half, halfway overlap.

That’s very hard to, what’s our air at? Turn the air up. Oh, the air compressor’s off.

All right. Not bad. Not too bad anymore. Not bad at all buddy. Good job. It’s not perfect. Yeah. But it matches the rest of the car. Orange peeled up. Like we call this thing "Orange Appeal."
Sure. That looks so awesome in the sun, in the sunset.

So this is all good then? Um, front edge right here, let’s give it a little bit more, especially the front edge, 'cause this is where it’s going to get hit with rocks.

All right, that’s all she wrote. That’s it buddy. Wow. But that’s not bad at all. Well now the entire car is painted. Yeah. Like what, like we need to just finish painting the car. Hey, five.
That’s better. Pretty cool.

All right, I mean Nathan Mebane you just painted your fenders. Where are you going to go next?
I don’t know. Take a shower. Probably a good idea.

Let’s uh, well actually, you know what we’re going to do? No, we’re not going to take a shower.
We’re going to shower that gun. That got to be cleaned out. And then they can go on that bad puppy, which looks amazing in this sunset.

We used a little bit of what was left in the pot to go through and touch up a couple spots on the cowl, inside the door jamb, where things got scraped up. Looks like somebody is enjoying their Baja, and can you blame them really?

A boy and his Baja. Nathan can drive his own car into the garage. Lights off. Boom.

This thing’s awesome. You don’t say. Yeah, I do say. You did say. He’s insane.

All right. I can see even just driving that thing, the next step is: Clean it up. Clean it up.

So insane seeing it in the light and all the, I think more important, the door panels, the speedometer and warning lights. Yeah, probably. And gauges. So let’s maybe work on the dash the rest of the week. All right.

But for now, we got the fenders painted and the front end painted. The fend’s already on. That thing’s looking gorgeous buddy. From here looks great. Yeah. I mean it’s a good 10-footer.
We can put the rear fenders on tomorrow, which are over here. Yeah, I think. Haven’t gotten much done with it yet.

The rear fenders came out better than anything. We learned as we came along. And then of course Nathan sprayed these, so these look better than everything. Definitely little orange peel, but the nice thing is they actually have some good shine on them compared to everything else.

I mean, I, I have experience when it comes to painting stuff. You’ve painted more cars than I have technically. I mean granted they were 1:32 scale cars. But yeah. 1:64 scale. Or 1:64 scale, yeah. And a whole ton in between.

What’s going on over there Nathan? Putting the fender on. That fender? No, that fender.
Oh, this fender over here you’re putting on. I thought I was putting this one on. I want to do that one. Well you already got that one already in place. Looking sharp over there. That paint looks super good. Yeah. I just have to replace all the hardware 'cause I was using this stuff when I, I told you, temporarily.

Well, you work on that one, I’m working on this one. Trim out some notches for the fender beading, get all the bolts tightened up and find the forehead saver for that side. Yeah, I don’t know where that went.

And I definitely got to find the forehead saver 1000s for this side. Nathan found it for that side.
Can’t quite remember what I did with it. If not, I’m definitely going to get some more because I don’t want to cut my hood open anymore. Yeah, I don’t want to cut my finger like I did yesterday. Yeah, it still hurts a lot. Didn’t feel very good. Nope. You telling me that cutting your finger doesn’t feel good? Yeah.

Another item that we’ve got printing out now, bar end caps that just push into the place on inch and a half .095 tubing. We got some there, there, and over here as well. Just to cap off the ends. Figured it was a good idea, so we came up with them and we printed them.

Nathan, you have an orange front end. Mhm. And orange fenders. Mhm. Did you think at the beginning of February that we would have this thing painted by the end of March? I didn’t think any point it would be done. You didn’t think it would be painted at any point? I say to be honest, I didn’t even think it would be painted by the end of the year. I must say that we had longer-term goals in mind than what we ended up doing. That’s for dang sure.

No, but I mean, what’s the point of going to a show with the car looking exactly the same as it did last time? Well it doesn’t look exactly the same as last year now does it? Yeah, definitely.
It looks like a different car. I mean not necessarily different, just painted. It looks like a different car. If I was to show people a picture of this car last year, I think it looks like almost completely different. Yeah. Sure it’s a Volkswagen. It’s a Baja Bug. I mean there’s a lot of different Baja Bugs out there. Yep. And this is one of them.

So with that, we still have some stuff to do before the show, which is this Sunday, March 23rd. By the time this video comes out, the show will have already come and gone. Now we’ve got to get some of the gauges put in the dash. Definitely. And get some of the wiring up there hooked up. Yeah.

But until then, I’m Sam. And I’m Nate. Thanks for watching. And life’s full of good people, if you can’t find one, be one. Later guys.

overall rating: my rating: log in to rate