There is where the Dashboard
hung for over thiry years. It was originally Red
but painted blue by the previous owner and then
never reinstalled into the vehicle
The dash had several layers of
primer and paint including the original layer of
red paint. This Healey was originally Old English
White with a red interior and I guess a Red dash
board. We used an environmentally safe chemical
stripping adgent to remove the paint and primer
and it took several applications
The Dashboard had several extra
holes drilled in it for accessories that needed
to be patched. I TIG welded the middle two square
holes that you see in the picture and I used an
epoxy metal filler on the one above the cockpit
area both methods worked well.
The Dash has been primed and
painted several times before reaching this level
of finish. Its Like a piece of ARTWORK!
I had originally primed the
surface with high build primer out of a can! Then
sanded to get a close to flat surface. Then I
painted with a black high gloss lacquer(Out of a
spray can). I WAS
NOT satisfied with the finish (I
didn't even photograph it at that stage). So I
had the whole thing stripped to bare metal again,
this time with Baking soda (American
Stripping). The baking soda method does not
harm the soft aluminum! Then my buddy Steve and I
used a polyester fill along with Veraprime to
acheive a very flat surface. We finished with a
coat of High Gloss Black Imron. Steve WAS NOT
satisfied with the finish. even though I thought
it was OK. So we sucffed up the surface and got
it over to Ray at the Paint shop (A-Body
in Ashland, MA).
Ray has the capability of
matching any color we desire. I had wanted to
paint this dash Dark blue, which would be
appropriate for an Ice Blue Metallic Healey but,
I could not find the right color (in cans). Ray
presented me with a whole new opportunity!
Ray mixed up two special
batches of paint. One for the silver and one for
the Dark blue (Midnight "Mit Nach" Blue
- A Mecerdes color). Ray did a superb job and
finished with several coats of Clear. The
formulas are pictured below. Click on the picture
to get a higher def picture so you can actually
read the formula.
Here's
the final result installed
You can kinda see the
blueish color in this bright light. In
dim light it just looks black.
|
