Date:         Thu, 4 May 2000 01:57:36 -0500
Reply-To:     Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Subject:      My Rockguard project (long)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi Volks:

This is a report on my rockguarding the Igloo. (rocker panels, wheel arches,
rear apron?, front around signals, between vertical seams below the
headlights -  all the way from the bumper mounts up to the lower grill.)

First of all - it took me about 3 1/2 hours of intense work to accomplish
the following:

a.    remove the bumpers, all the signal lights, grills etc  and the
electrical hookup;

b. Apply masking tape and masking paper to mask off surfaces ( the greatest
time was spent on this);

c.    really scour hard the to-be-sprayed areas with scotchbrite pads and
wipe down with grease remover.

The actually spraying only took about 10 minutes, for 2 coats. I let it dry
for about 60 min before I removed the masking. It turned out very nice -rock
hard - hence the name.

I would have liked to leave it there to be painted, but, alas, it was a
night course - and I had to leave the shop.

The only tough or tricky part was properly masking the curves around the
wheel wells. There is definitely a trick to it - my instructor ripped off
all my curved areas, and redid it in about 5 minutes. The problem is that
along a curve, the inner and outer edges of the masking tape prevent smooth
curves - the radii are different, and the tape doesn't stretch.

I think we will paint it next week or the week after - and I bet it goes
much faster! It occurred to me, that since I am doing a computer-colour
matched paint (imaged with a sensor) I don't really need to mask very much -
I bet we can just feather the new paint over the old (past the edge of the
rockguard). I'll have to ask the instructor about it.

How MAACO can paint 4 cars a day is totally miraculous to me.

Marshall Ruskin
84 Westy "Iron Igloo"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Founding Member of "Vanagon's Anonymous"