1911 Ford Model T Restoration: Painting the car

Looking at the blog dates, I noticed it has been one year and one day since my last entry. No excuse other than being busy with other stuff and that it is more enjoyable working on old cars than WRITING about them!

Anyway, after I got my "paint booth" made, it was time to prime and paint the car. Like when I painted our 1915 runabout, I was at this stage of restoration during the hottest part of the year. Too cold or too hot can cause issues when it comes to painting.

I primed the body parts using a two part direct to metal urethane primer. Even with the reducer, it is still pretty thick; almost like spray "Bondo". It wet sands nicely and provides a good foundation for the paint.

I used a single stage, two part urethane paint when I painted our runabout, and did the same for this car. With a urethane paint job, you can do a single stage paint or base color coat with clear coat paint. I prefer the single stage paint for painting Model Ts because I don't want to blow through the clear coat during the final sanding/buffing stage.

One of the main advantages of using a urethane paint is that you can use progressively finer grades of wet sandpaper, followed by two stages of buffing compound that will result in a mirror smooth paint job when done. I covered the process in more detail on a posting on the Model T Ford Club of America forum site after I painted our runabout, and those interested can read about that process here:

https://www.mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6764&p=51027#p51027

After about 40 hours of priming, painting, wet sanding and buffing, the job was done. I was happy with how it turned out. This would have been a very expensive paint job if I had it professionally done. Here are a few pictures of the progress, along with the finished body with the firewall installed. I used the original firewall, which was broken in multiple pieces, as a template to locate the Ford patent plate and the brass California Vehicle Registration tag where it was originally screwed on well over 100 years ago.