A baby is RE-born: BABY PAC restoration project

[zapposh]

NEVER DO THAT!!! It does not hold when you spray over. I sprayed a coat of black acrylic over the Hammerite, and the whole thing crackled up and started desintegrating. So sanded the whole thing down again.

First of all, great job on the panel !, it looks saweeet !

about your paint issue, that is because you use acrylic over oilbased paint i think....

Thanks. Yes, you must be right. As long as the Hammerite was alone it was ok. As soon as the acrylic was added it was a right-off.

I have heard never to mix the two kinds of paint ..

[zapposh]

Back to the color scan issue.
I somehow cannot find the courage to cut out a whole chunk of the perfectly solid  and in good state cab to take out a piece for color scanning, like Superully did.
And my car is much too small to take the whole cab to the shop like Darthnuno did.

How big does the surface need to be for the color-scanner to work correctly? Will a little chip of paint do, or does it have to be like 6x6cm or something?

[Superully]

the size of a 2 euro coin should be fine!

[level42]

This is an awesome restoration !!!

May I suggest that you paint the bottom of the joystick? In my experience it starts rusting again very quickly if you leave it bare.

Even better if you have the possibility to powder coat it, like Ully had done for my Pac stick.

[zapposh]

This is an awesome restoration !!!

May I suggest that you paint the bottom of the joystick? In my experience it starts rusting again very quickly if you leave it bare.

Even better if you have the possibility to powder coat it, like Ully had done for my Pac stick.

Thanks for the input Level42.
I also think that many other parts will need to be sealed off from rust, which I did not realize when working on them.
Parts like the ones on the pics below obviously had their protective coat removed when I sanded them so much.




I noticed that as long as they are in the warm dry atmosphere of the house, they are fine. But as soon as they spend some time in the garage not far from the washing line and changes of temperature or condensation, they develop a sort of powder rust coating (Flugrost), which is very easy to remove, but still needs to be sealed off somehow. Maybe some sort of transparent spray, as I cannot make all these parts black. The base of the joystick I will spray like you said.

[zapposh]

Today was a bad, or better said, an unsuccessful day for my Baby renovation.
First, even though I felt bad about it, I cut out a 2€ piece of the cab like Ully suggested.
As you can see, from under where the decal was, for two reasons:
1) the paint color is really vibrant and clean there
2) if I suck at filling the hole I hope it will be less visible when the new decals are on





Poor baby has a hole. Well, I suppose it could be worse.

And off we go to the paintshop. Sorry Darthnuno, I found out that I have a shop very close to my place, so decided to go to Messancy as plan B if they don't manage here.

At the paintshop I explain to the (quite young and enthusiastic) guy what is going on, and what I need it for.
Ok, so he takes my sample, and comes back 3 minutes later and says:
"Do you want 95-97% accuracy, or 101%?" (101%?: well, in his words absolutely accurate)
As it is my first restoration, I go for 101% of course.
"Well, in that case come back on monday with a bigger piece!". Aaarghhhh.

Here is the explanation:
They have a sort of hand-scanner, thing you hold in your hand, place over the color, and it gives you the color feedback, code, or catalogue equivalent and things like that. They say it is 95-97% accurate.
But they also have a machine which looks like a sort of combo "blackbox" scanner & mixer. They insert the piece and out comes your pot of paint, and they swear by this hi-tech tool that it is spot on accurate. Ok, so back home we go.

[zapposh]

Ok, so now it's time to get out a full sized part for their magic machine.
Just next to my 2€ cutout, out comes the full cab piece this time.




And this is what they will get on Monday:


Really not happy about having a big gaping hole like that in the cab, but will see about that later.

[zapposh]

Ok, the sun shining, the cab being outside and everything ready, I thought it would be a great day for sanding:
Started with 60 grit. The first 10 minutes went really smoothly:


Then a loud cracking noise, and the sander breaks in two!


Used to sand the pinball board of Baby Pac and this part, that's all!
In the shop the was a great looking Bosch machine, and next to it this one, with loads of options and other free stuff, more Watts and so on. The salesman says it's amazing, a real powerhorse, loads of free pads to go with it and so on. I usually only buy Bosch stuff, but decided the guy might have a clue about what he's talking about, and after all, there is a price difference. Well, this is rubbish!

Nice pic of the box: "High Quality Tools":

DON'T BUY ONE, whether it's to sand a cab or file your toenails.

Another thing to deal with on Monday.

So, back in went the cab without any further work. 

[Superully]

it sucks when you have to wait for something (unfortunately patience is a virtue which i don't have - or at least it could use some love and tenderness), but hey, 101% accuracy - can you ask for more? i'm curious to find out how accurate this really is. as for the "operation": you will be able to fix this and it won't be visible underneath the decals!

as for the power tool: don't buy CCC!!!

[Etienne MacGyver]

....Then a loud cracking noise, and the sander breaks in two!

Well, at least you got yourself a almost new mains cord  

[vernimark]

I absolutely can't reach your perfection level my friend!!
you are doing a fantastic job!!!!!!!

[zapposh]

it sucks when you have to wait for something (unfortunately patience is a virtue which i don't have - or at least it could use some love and tenderness), but hey, 101% accuracy - can you ask for more? i'm curious to find out how accurate this really is. as for the "operation": you will be able to fix this and it won't be visible underneath the decals!

as for the power tool: don't buy CCC!!!

Thanks Superully! I am also impatient like you, especially when the time is perfect to advance. And for CCC I learned my lesson.

....Then a loud cracking noise, and the sander breaks in two!

Well, at least you got yourself a almost new mains cord  

Very good one! That's the spirit! 

I absolutely can't reach your perfection level my friend!!
you are doing a fantastic job!!!!!!!

Thanks vernimark! I'm sure yours will turn out great. And you have the genuine playfield not sanded off, which is great! After the restortation is completed I might look for a genuine playfield in good condition and have it ceramic-clearcoated after paint restoration. But that has time...



 

[zapposh]

Hmmm, the good news first or bad news first?

Let's start with the good one.
The weather here is fantastic today in Baby Pac-Land. 

[zapposh]

That ok news is that I got this broken piece of chinese crap:


Replaced by a new version of the same chinese crap: 


"What did you do to it?" they ask on a stupid tone like I drove over it with a tank.
Well, once I've saved money to buy the nice looking Bosch model, I wont go to that shop. Done with them...

[zapposh]

And then the bad part. Today I was to get my 101% accurate Baby Pac paint scanned and mixed.

First, I must say kudos for the guys at the shop. I've never had such amazing service of 2 hours for 1L of paint.
Anyway, this is how it went. They loved my new sample for their mixing machine, that I cut out on Saturday:


The problem is the scanner replies with an accuracy of 99%. So the guys recalibrate the whole thing twice, told everyone in the shop to stop moving so that there are no parasite light effects and redid the process again and again. The best we got to was 99,11%, which seemed to puzzle them as the sample was said to be perfect, clean, the right size and all...
Frankly, to me such a value sounds great, and I have no idea if one can tell such accuracy or not with the normal eye.
But they say the human eye can tell starting rom 0,2% off. WOW!

After a lot of discussion and speculation amongst the guys, the decide I need semi-gloss oil based paint. I know many use water based, but the cab almost has a vinyl touch to it, and the guys said I would never reach the same color and texture water-based.
So they mixed a pot of 1L. At first sight, OH DEAR!
Dried with the hair dryer it came out really green.

So we again applied a coat, a decided to let it dry naturally for 24 hours to let the oils evaporate, the glossy effect to go away, and apparently it will be much less green then. On wednesday I'll go back, and we'll modify the mixture manually (well, on the machine to save the settings, but adding a drop of this and that until it's right).

This is the result now, still very wet and glossy (see bottom right corner):




Tomorrow we'll compare the results when dry. So much to 101%!