Over restored

[arceye]

I think it all finally comes down to personal preference.

Some like their cars despite being mass produced people movers to be finished to the standards that would have been found on superior brands destined for the wealthy

Some like them finished just as new from the factory

And some like them looking as they did after they left the factory and fell into the hands of Joe Public, being driven everyday and getting that "patina" thing, when they were owned by those who had not much more than a brush and a tin of Japlac at his disposal after the first rust holes were filled.

Who is to say which is right and which is wrong, its a bit like the is it or isn't it a classic argument. The reality is, that if it is yours, you do it how you want and blow everyone else. I generally range from the roughest end of the spectrum up to a BL factory finish, though can do better if I want, and I have even started aiming for better finishes ( well as much as can be can be achieved reasonably swiftly in a drafty wooden garage) as I have grown into middle age but it doesn't make me right, or wrong, its just what I like and what suits the pocket.

Some of the nicest paint I remember seeing was actually on my Great Uncles coal wagons, green with red pinstripes, signwritten and coach painted, they didn't need it but looked great despite just carting coal down alleys.

Perhaps in the end its more important to consider your budget and skill set, and then work within your means to actually get the vehicle back on the road, rather than aim too high and end up with a pile of shiny parts that never go back together.

I'd rather have one a little rougher round the edges that I can look at and say say "I did that", than a perfect example that I can say "I paid for that to be done", but when alls said and done, its just a matter of preference and perhaps depth of wallet. I'd still like to see more recognition of the effort gone to by the owners of some rougher everyday cars at shows though, rather than the consistent "buying" of trophies by those with the largest wallets as seems to be the case round our parts.

[JPB]

I'd rather have one a little rougher round the edges that I can look at and say say "I did that", than a perfect example that I can say "I paid for that to be done"..

That probably sums up the way that a majority of practical owners of old motors feel about their chosen rides, but with your RM, you achieved near perfection and could still lay claim to having done it. I, on the other hand, have to confess to having looked at some horror stories in my time and muttering something about having paid someone to do these. I always believed that I'd have gained more time in which to fart around with my own cars after I had to give up being on the workshop floor on a daily basis, but then I discovered that there's a limit to how infrequently I can turn up to do stuff with my students and that, apart from looking like a really dodgy confession, has meant that the awkward wee buggers next generation of gifted young engineers takes more time to manage than a whole month's worth of actual work. How does this happen then, eh?

[arceye]

Cheers John, though there are things I would have done differently / better on the Riley if I was tackling it over again. That said a lot of decisions on how to proceed where purely dictated by cost, and given the state of that old lady when she came I think the end result was not bad.

the trouble with that one was hitting a stage where finances were too tight to continue doing justice to her, or indeed to repair her if she had gone wrong, so rather than risk her ending up in a garage for another 40 years I thought it best to let her go.

I think what I really need next is a everyman classic with good / cheap parts supply etc. As long as I have a sensible modern to keep the missus sweet it doesn't have to match her needs. Hopefully before too long I'll make a comeback

Regarding time, it does seem that whatever you do, something else always manages to fill the hours you were hoping to free up doesn't it.

[tractorman]

I haven't worked out this time thing yet, so I assume I never will!

When we moved here 30 odd years ago, I could spent five hours on the model railway twice a day (quite often about ten or eleven hours if I was taking a week off work)

When I got the first tractor, I could spend eight or ten hours working on it over a weekend

When I bought the Land Rover, I could spent four hours a day with it.

I spent about an hour working on it yesterday and had intended to do something today but it's cold and wet outside now (I was in town for most of the morning).

As far as students are concerned, I fear that we forget how much we more experienced folk do without thinking. Watching the kids at school working out where to cut a piece of 40mm x 3mm flat steel sometimes made me wonder if the hacksaw blade was upside down and if the set squares had got twisted! Seeing them do something technical (from CAD to setting up the workpiece in a lathe - and actually turning it, or even something like drilling and tapping a hole) was painful! OTOH the local scrapman got a lot of free metal!!

Regarding restoration - my theory is that I do what I can and spend what I have to spend to make it safe and presentable. I would never say I produce excellent restorations, but I do get some very kind comments from all sorts of people. I reckon that having a well restored Fergy pulled more females than any E-type could!! I think arceye is a little modest about his work - not only the RM (I'm still jealous of that!) but the "bodged" Mini that looked a lot better than the write-up suggested!

Hmm MM - isn't that Moggy a bit more modern than an MM?

[Fatbloke]

Can't acuse mine of this

[Flatlander]

Regarding restoration - my theory is that I do what I can and spend what I have to spend to make it safe and presentable. I would never say I produce excellent restorations, but I do get some very kind comments from all sorts of people. I reckon that having a well restored Fergy pulled more females than any E-type could!!

Thats exactly the way that a friend of mine did things when he was alive. Mentioning a restored Fergy reminded me of one of his projects, and a funny story. When the Fergy was finished, he entered it in a show on Angelsey. Pottering round the field, the judges remarked on how nicely the engine ran and sounded. When they looked at it in the enclosure, he got disqualified. The beautifully running Grey Fergy engine was out of a Zetor tractor...

[SirTainleyBarking]

if you want a nice paintjob ask that chapfoose fellow, he's doing a rather spectacular resto of a cortina on here somewhere.. at the end of the day its the owners choice & if he wants to spend £3000 painting his car its really up to him.. personally i wouldnt give that sort of money for a roller unless it was one of these http://plant.autotrader.co.uk/used-plan ... sting=true

Yeah but Chap's a pro, so a) all it's going to cost him is his time and materials, and b) he's going to want to show off his skillz. - He ain't gonna want to brag about a Dagenham Friday job

Most of the costs of a pro job is the guy's labour, and a trailer queen result will take a lot of hours

[History]

My Shadow is black. Black is about the easiest colour to spray. So doing a OK diy job is no problem. But doing to RR standards is much harder and best way is 2pack and an oven.

Some colours especially metallics are best left to a body shop. I have sprayed metallics but blending and matching is sometimes a matter of luck and have ended up respraying the whole car. A gold merc I worked on haunted me for months due to colour problems. Got it correct in the end. Black would have been much easier. My spray guy was very patient.

Bob

[tractorman]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before but, when I was in college in 1990/1, a lad bought a gunmetal grey 3-sereis BMW. He hated the colour and was wanting it sprayed black. He came in one day and said he knew a bloke who would spray the car for £50! I said that I wouldn't even do a wing for that and he suggested I was a rip-off merchant.

Come the following Monday, he turned up with his shiny black BMW. Well, some of it was shiny, some was satin and some was matt. And it wasn't all the same shade of black either! Apparently the bloke who did it sprayed taxis for a living and had used up the left over part-full tins of black paint!

Some metallics seem to be OK with aerosol touch-up jobs, while they stick out a mile on others. The last two Golfs were metallic (silver and dark blue) and you could hardly see the fade in the silver one - even the insurance bloke missed it - and the blue one only suffered because I kept forgetting to spray the lacquer on it! That was because the nearside of the car is always rather close to a wall when parked up. If the scratch had been on the offside (as it was on the silver one), things would have been a lot easier! I would have preferred both cars to have had a solid colour - it's so much easier to deal with.

I agree about the gold though - that was the worst one I ever did (on a MkV Cortina).

[Flatlander]

I agree about the gold though - that was the worst one I ever did (on a MkV Cortina).

My classic, which I am currently doing the paintwork on is gold. So I hope you are wrong there! I'll do a resto thread on it on here when its all finished, see what you all think.

The colours that I personally find worst to spray are black and white. Metallics are a lot easier now than I remember them being in the past, until it comes to doing a touch up. I've never got blending in quite right yet!