Date:         Tue, 1 Mar 2005 07:15:26 -0800
Reply-To:     Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Subject:      Re: people who dont fix their seam rust....
In-Reply-To:  <14591152.1109658893421.JavaMail.jrunberg@mac.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On 1 Mar 2005 at 1:34, John Runberg <jrunberg@MAC.COM> wrote:

> Zoltan,
>
> A quick question to the body-guy inlaw dad brought the following answers:
> - old paint is usually faded. You can have a color spectrometer match the color on the car, but why?
> - A good body man can fade/sand the new paint into the old paint. This may or not be noticable depending on how off the two colors are.
> - if some of the seams are failing then most likely ALL of the seams are failing. Suggestion was to suck it up and start digging out every inch of the stuff, starting w/ > - by the time you finish all the cracks, you'll want a new paint job :) Especially after the windows are pulled to fix the rust behind there.
> - bad cauk probably means thin paint, as well. Again, prep for a full paint. Not cheap.
>
> He was real helpful -- basically told me to have fun and just do it. Joy. Time to start saving...

Depending on the colour and paint condition, you might be surprised at the match to
original paint. My '82 with original Bamboo Yellow (I've never seen Bamboo this
colour! :-) paint looked rough when I bought it, but I've started polishing and waxing,
and it is amazing how good the paint is underneath. It came with a bottle of original
touch up paint, and I did a few chips and found the match to be very close. Those
little touch up paints may not be a very good indicator of original colour, but I've also
found very little difference in colour between exposed and hidden areas - ie: removed
the mirrors, and there was no perceptible difference in shading beneath.
Light, non-metallic colours seem to be the best for aging, and the quality of paint
used is generally excellent, with a few notable exceptions...

My '85 Jetta in Garnet Red is so badly oxidized the paint is almost worn right off -
attempting to polish it with even the best treatments (mother's, Zymol, 3m
professional polishes) has resulted in primer showing through in some areas.
Fortunately, I don't think this colour was ever used on Vanagons...



Shawn Wright
http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
'85 Jetta TD (retired)
'85 Jetta D
'88 Westy 2.1L
'82 Diesel Westy