{"id":216,"date":"2011-12-06T20:46:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T20:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=216"},"modified":"2014-03-29T17:52:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-29T17:52:13","slug":"still-getting-ready-to-paint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"Still Getting Ready to Paint….."},"content":{"rendered":"

So we finally delivered the Defender to Bernard at Sikkens (Kolours) for painting on November 19, complete with the roof rack and ladder because they are also part of the deal.\u00c2\u00a0 That was two weeks ago and they are working hard, but no actual paint has been applied yet. There is a popular misconception is that a “paint job” is a simple, individual step, but actually painting comprises numerous steps before the real painting of the car can be done.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I knew this but think I stumbled into the misconception.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I have been by a few times and they are always working on it, but not painting.\u00c2\u00a0 I know that a great paint job is the outcome of many hours expended sanding and readying the body perfectly smooth before the paint can be applied, this is essential to get the look you are expecting, but I am starting to get restless. \u00c2\u00a0 I told Bernard that he can take the time needed to do a good job, but I did not expect that it would take\u00c2\u00a0 this long. The first time I went by the vehicle was not at the paint shop at all, but rather “at the seaside” which, piqued my curiousity.\u00c2\u00a0 The shop is only a couple of blocks from the shore, and I imagined somewhow they were doing some environmentally egregious work at the tide-line.\u00c2\u00a0 I went looking and found that in fact Kolours has a second location where they do the body prep work: puttying, filling,\u00c2\u00a0 sanding. It is closer to the shore, but not on it at all,<\/p>\n

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November 24:\u00c2 Jonathon checking some of the putty prep work with Bernard, Manager at Kolours. Note the Ghanaian flag flying next door.<\/p><\/div>\n

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....all signs of EPA are gone forever from the door. That little Land Rover tdi emblem on the lower fender is also going to get sanded down to nothing.<\/p><\/div>\n

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They are doing the putty and sanding work both to the outside\u00c2\u00a0 of the vehicle and the inside, which is completely stripped except for the old drivers seat.\u00c2\u00a0 That does make for a rather large area to cover and adds to the time.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They are now\u00c2\u00a0 getting quite close to actually applying paint. I insisted they not paint around all the various appurtenances on the body (ie. lights) and was there to see them remove them.<\/p>\n

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November 28: Rear lights coming off.\u00c2 Note the roof rack has also been removed for painting separately.\u00c2 The rack footing marks on the gutter that were so visible have now been puttied and sanded away<\/p><\/div>\n

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December 1: Front lights, grill, vents and panels are all off.\u00c2 Can no longer see the tdi emblem on the fender.\u00c2 <\/p><\/div>\n

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Masked and primered Defender outside Sikkens. Roof has been painted white.\u00c2 \u00c2 <\/p><\/div>\n

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December 5: Masked and primered, complete with sleeping dog. Roof has been painted white<\/p><\/div>\n

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Kolours have now invested well over two weeks in careful pre-paint prep work.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t quite figure out the pricing, Ghana is not that inexpensive.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They seem very professional and thorough, although my close monitoring has yielded some benefits.\u00c2\u00a0 In the picture to the left you can see they have just masked the rear license plate and left it on.\u00c2\u00a0 However, I will have to change that plate and I think the new one is going to be a different size than the old one.\u00c2\u00a0 I had asked Benard to remove it but they must have forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 Fortunately I went by and caught\u00c2\u00a0 this and they have now taken it off.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is not an easy thing to do – the plate is actually riveted to the vehicle. I also see they had not taken off the tdi decals from one of the front fenders, which would have either been painted around or over, either one of which would have looked messy.<\/p>\n

We have now actually passed the ‘getting ready to paint’ stage, the roof has been painted, and the next time we see the Defender it will be sporting the new NATO Lightstone caramel colour.\u00c2\u00a0 The wheels, roof rack ladder, and underside also have yet to be done, but once they start spraying it will happen fast.<\/p>\n

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So we finally delivered the Defender to Bernard at Sikkens (Kolours) for painting on November 19, complete with the roof rack and ladder because they are also part of the deal.\u00c2\u00a0 That was two weeks ago and they are working hard, but no actual paint has been applied yet. There is a popular misconception is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16,25,13,24,20,14,15,22,19,18,21,23],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-restoration-and-outfitting-technical-and-cultural-exploration-and-discovery","tag-4x4","tag-africa","tag-defender","tag-expedition","tag-ghana","tag-land-rover","tag-overland","tag-overlanding","tag-painting","tag-restoration","tag-west-africa","tag-wheatcroft","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}