Painting
I have done a few modifications to the rear bodywork on the Striker. I bought clear gel bodywork to save a bit of weight and with the intention of getting it sprayed. I decided a while back to get the spraying done by Martin Bell at The Kit Car Workshop as, like myself, Martin is a bit of a perfectionist and I knew I would be getting a top paint job.
The rear bodywork turned out to be a lot more work than I had ever imagined it would. It was back in August when I cut off the arches and it had been a bit of a slog to get all the bits finished. In the end I had got it as good as I could and handed the end result over to Martin to finish off the prep work. The main concern was the join where I had extended the arches. There was a very slight unevenness across this surface, like a very slight ripple that you could just feel with your hand. I was concerned that this would stick out like a sore thumb once the paint was applied.
I took all the bodywork over to The Kit Car Workshop in the back of the car and left it with Martin to see what it looked like when primed and I left it to his judgment as to how much work was needed to get a good finish. After much indecision I eventually made my mind up to stick with MG Trophy Blue as it was a pure blue colour with no hint of purple or cyan and the pearlescant finish was quite subtle unlike some other heavier flaked metallics I've seen, like Viper blue.
In the end the rear bodywork took a pretty enormous amount of work. Martin used many many layers of high fill basecoat, which were flatted back in between coats to get the perfectly smooth finish you can see. The rest of the bodywork was less labour intensive, but still a lot of work priming, applying and flatting high fill basecoat to cover the smallest of blemishes, then base colour coat, then lacquer, then polishing. All in all about 200 hours work!
However, I think it is fair to say that the results speak for themselves. It is almost too good to drive and I would heartily recommend The Kit Car Workshop to anyone thinking of having a car sprayed. You don't produce paintwork, in a pearlescant finish, like this unless you know what you are doing.
This is what it looked like after priming, basecoating and then flatted back for the first time over the arches. Just look how uneven it all is, despite my best efforts!
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These are the pictures I got from Martin after 4 weeks' hard graft, as soon as he had sprayed on the lacquer. To say I was stunned would be an understatement.
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This is the sight that awaited me when I walked into Martin's workshop facilities to collect the bodywork. Amazing!
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