Preparing to Paint Scarlet, The 1963 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet

Here, on this page, the metalwork has all been done and the primer is now applied, illustrated in 23 images. The painting phase follows this (on a different page).

AT RIGHT: Scarlet ready for paint.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT COLORS

In these images, color is your key to understanding what you're seeing during the bodyworking process. Various fillers and primers are used, and these can be identified by color, but also, the lighter and darker places are keys as well. Be sure to read the section below on interpreting each color and on the process of using high-spots in "straigtening" a panel and how this relates to color.

On this page, you'll find:

Body Filler and Sanding
Applying a Red-Oxide Primer Coat
The Paint
Removing Paint Flaws

Body Filler

After the metal-working phase - sometimes during it - comes a bit of body filler.

It's important to understand modern body fillers. The first thing is to understand the choice of filler, and the second is to understand how it's applied so images of such work can best be evaluated.

Types of fillers

Karmann Ghias were originally constructed using pewter (not lead) as the product Karmann used to fill in low spots in the body prior to painting. Not only is pewter expensive, nobody today would use it (except to be anally retentively correct in a restoration) because it has a lot of technical disadvantages. In the modern era, we also use filler to "straighten" a body panel a little bit. Here's the list of fillers available now and some comments on them:

Pewter or lead - old-school. Negatives: hard to work, stiff, doesn't flex well with the body as it naturally flexes, very expensive, heavy, dangerous to work with, and it's hard to do properly. Advantages: original workmanship, very durable.
Plastics: Negatives: Not as durable, if applied too thickly, it can come off in big chunks, is prone to "pitting" during application, is not as durable. Advantages: very inexpensive compared with pewter or lead, very flexible, light weight, safe to work with. Note that there are varrious grades of plastic filler and the more expensive ones are five times the price or more but can be applied VERY thinly whereas cheaper ones (like traditional "Bondo") won't lay down as thinly and don't adhere as well. Also, there have long been very cheap fillers on the market which are air-dried. These are to be avoided because they continue to shrink for a very long time and are a cause of painting issues long after the paint is applied. Instead, all the products applied should be catalyzed - meaning there's another product added (sometimes two) to serve as hardener. Such products are dimensionally stable once dry.
Primer: Many flaws can be "removed" in the primer coat. A "heavy, filling primer" is like a layer of paint designed to fill in low spots - this strategy should never be overlooked! However, they should be catalized or else filling primers continue to shrink after application and this causes problems later.
Paint: One of my favorite techniques to a top-notch paint job is to paint it (at least) twice and literally use paint as a filler. The advantage here is that you can see every flaw exactly as the finished product, and disadvantage is time and cost. In past times, you could have had the disadvantage of building up too thick a layer and then having chipping problems and / or loss of detail, crispness of edges, etc. However, modern paints lay VERY much thinner than old-school paints and sand better, too, so you can end up with a thin layer after sanding much of it away.

Scarlet has kept most of her old-school pewter - only lost some around the headlights. She has some of the very thin primer - it's a greenish yellow shade in these photos, and a tiny bit of thicker primer, reserved only for the deepest dents that weren't literally taken out in the metal. She also has a coat of catalized polyester expoxy primer as described below. And then, two coats of paint, so the first coat literally serves to be a filler layer to help smooth out the last bit to perfection.

Understanding Images of Bodywork With Filler

Good workmanship keeps the filler as thin as possible to keep from the work becoming a sculpture in plastic. For the best work, a very thin filler is used which becomes more transparent the thinner it gets! The idea is to remove (sand down) filler using a straight tool such that the high spots start to show through. By using at least two, and preferably three or more high spots, the worker can keep the outer surface parallel to the intended shape, and the filler as thin as can be.

Therefore, in these images, a "splochy" or "speckled" look is a good thing! That's because the high-spots are showing through, thus meaning the filler is very thin.

Also, sometimes tiny spots that might otherwise spoil a great job need to be dealt with. This can be due to air bubbles having been trapped in the plastic, by too aggressive sanding in an earlier phase, by old or poor quality plastic, and many other causes. Because the plastic is catalized, there's no concern that the plastic will continue to shrink, so tiny fixes can be used to avoid having to start over. So, once again, seeing splotches in the images where tiny fixes are applied is a good thing because it means the workman has taken the time to actually fix all the tiny errors! What counts most is the final finish, not what it looks like before you get there!

Color-coding Of What You See In These Images

Grey, glossy: "POR-15", a type of paint that prohibits rusting.It was not applied to the outer skin at all, but can be seen on some of the inner work.
Grey, flat: rattle-can primer used to prevent rust from dew / humidity, sometimes used as an alternate color to help determine depth while sanding. Generally speaking, flat grey areas represent very high metal, so high it became bare metal during sanding, and thus required some protection from dew & humidity.
White to Pink: "Bondo" - cheaper plastic filler. It's actually a light pink but looks white in some of these photos. It is usually the lowest layer of filler.
Yellow-Green: high-end plastic filler - the thiner it is, the more transparent. It is the last filler before primer.
Red: Scarlet's original paint.
Purple: Paint someone applied after Scarlet's encounter with the fence, presumably to keep it from rusting.

Filler started being applied in the later stages of the metalwork phase. Often the metal continues to be moved by hammer-and-dolley - it's a staged process.

Here's a perfect example - the right rear fender, done in three major steps, then many smaller ones (visible further below):

In this sequence, notice the appearance of dark spots - bare metal - showing through both the original paint and over the previously laid filler, especially in the upper right image. This is how the fender is "straightened" beyond just smooth metal: the low spots are filled in with filler and the bare metal spots are sign-posts to ensure not too much filler is removed, like the dark spot that appears in the middle of the lower left patch.

In the lower at right image, no filing has taken place yet, but in other images lower down, you can see how this layer of filler, too, has been sanded down to be extremely thin - and this is how it should be! Note the change to the yellow-green variety of filler!

Literally hundreds of images were taken that could show each spot as it evolved, but that would take gigabytes worth of images. Instead, in the metalworking section we show where we came from, and down below we show where we went to, and to help fill in the gaps, we'll add in a few random images that seemed interesting for some reason and fill in some - but far from all - of "the middle" of this work...

I like this image because it shows the limits of using the "high spots" strategy. The centerline of the fender running forward to the center of the headlight bucket (right to left) is a reference point. To the inboard side (up to the viewer here) there are some dark spots that appear in the aproximate center of that region - these spots are metal showing through the filler that appeared during filing. If you recall from the metalwork section, this whole area is new material, so it may not be quite enough metal, or in the right place, etc. So, one has to the "sculpt" the correct shape, so it looks and feels right, and so the left and right sides match each other!

In fact, this side, much more than the right, needed "remedial work" after it was initially completed because the right and left just didn't match well enough for my tastes and because the right was more of the ideal - based on decades of experience.

Oh, and that's just sanding dust laying in the low spot between the fender and the hood...

This image shows both doors. The left door, above right, had one signficant ding toward the handle side, and had been opened too far at some point - presumably after the door check-rod had failed. The "dots" in the paint were caused by mechanically grinding out tiny dots of corrosion. It was in otherwise reasonable condition.

The right door, however, was so bad a replacement was obtained. However, the seller had failed to pay attention tothe VIN (as I had warned they must!) and they sent the wrong door, of course. So, the original had to be repaired due to time and availability constraints. It looks reasonably good here, but the time spent on it was huge. In particular - and not readily visible here - the lower edge was bent inward considerably and took hours of pounding to move outward enough to work reasonably. (Keep in mind the lower edge is tripple thick, and too much movement at any one time can warp the whole door.)

For the sharp eyed, yes, there are two '50s era Karmann Ghias in the background. And yes, that's part of a Karmann Ghia body the left door is leaning on - a right rear quarter. If you look carefully, you can see that it's been carefully cut away at the engine bay "shelf"; this chunk of metal was the donor for Scarlet's engine bay repair materials, which is why it was on hand to be in this image...

BTW, both doors needed a lot more work after these images were taken, though apparently there weren't many other, more interesting images to choose from.

Also note that there's nearly zero filler at the trim holes. This is important because a primary reason the trim falls off is because the clips fail to hold because the "metal is too thick". Well, no, the metal isn't too thick, it's the body filler that's the problem! Here, that won't happen because of the relative lack of filler.

To my VERY great surprise, there actually had been some modest attempt at body repair following some older damage. I figure this had to be a separate event from runnign through the picket fence because otherwise the damage caused by this relatively easy repair would have been MUCH more wide spread. It was only discovered fairly late in the game, at the transition from metalwork to filler, primarily because it wasn't suspected!

The best guess from decades of experience is that what happened, based on the fact that the driver's door's match number does not match the body, and the fact that damage was "repaired" just behind the driver's door, was that apparently there was some minor accident that took out the driver's door and impacted the fender roughly mid-way between the door opening and rear tire opening. What's curious about this is that there does not appear to have been any damage to the body beyond a relatively minor ding - and such circumstance would seldom if ever require replacement of the door. Also, clearly the original paint color applied to the door - and it was not a new replacement door because it has a match number stamped into it - was the same Ruby Red as Scarlet... A best guess is that it was deemed cheaper to source an exact match in original paint from a junk yard than repair the modestly damaged original.

All that is speculation, however, as neither Miss Balazs, nor her surviving mother, remember any events whatsoever. However, what I did about it was gently re-repair the area by taking out all the filler from both sides and gently "dinging" (to use the old-school expression) not only the original dent out, but also the damage caused by the unfortunate use of a "slide-hammer". ...In the previously attempted repair, their strategy was to drill holes through the body and thread in a tapered screw - like a short wood screw - that was mounted to a shaft upon which a weight can slide but which is limited in travel. When the weight hits the travel limit, it imparts substantial force. This is used to "drive" the metal away from the threaded screw. ...They did this instead of simply lowering the top, removing the sheet-metal upholstery panel (retained by four small screws) that covers the area, and simply hammering the damage out! ...As I had already removed the top and upholstery cover, I was able to get to the other side very easily, but even in the case of the complete vehicle, access was no problem whatsoever... And it only took me about a half hour to remove both the original damage AND the additional damage cause by this idiotic "repair." What I didn't do was weld the holes closed where they had used the slide-hammer.

Subsequent to this damage and repair, the area was damaged again! This time by the fence Ms. Balazs drove through. You can see that in this image (above). The tiny black dot on the bottom left edge of the large patch of filler is a slide-hammer hole that missed being filled while I was filling the larger low patch that was caused by the drive-through-fence - it got filled a bit later. It's impossible now to tell if the larger area of damaged was caused more by the first incident or the second - but it hardly matters.

Oh, and before moving on, nice weld!....

Next up, the engine bay's first body filler - a closeup:

Above you can see that the left portion of the engine "tray" was painted with POR-15, a rust-preventative, because it had some corrosion in the past, and POR-15 prevents a reoccurance. The right, meanwhile, has both pink and yellow-green body filler on it - the first and second applications of it. The rear apron, meanwhile, has been straightened, but still needs more work. The first filler has been applied over the remnants of the huge dent that formerly was above the right tail light, mostly on the out-board side. And the section between the right bumper mounting hole and the outer skin repair can also be seen - the ONLY place where an overlap was used, for the simple reason that the remaining metal (the vertical seam) was too thin to weld.

These remaining shots inside are the last images captured before primer was applied - keep in mind grey areas, like the nose ridge, are all bare metal high-spots protected from rusting from humidity:

In interpreting these images, recall that the dark spots (and the grey) are "high" areas, so any filler between were formerly low areas - the more dark spots you see, the closer to perfect the area.

For some reason I'm not sure of, I liked this image, though the others seem to cover the same area well enough:

This repair was necessary due to rodents having set up home in the air box on the outboard side of the wheelhouse, filling it in with materials they obtained from the convertible top's padding, and that material trapping corrosive moisture. In the metalwork section, you'll note how a thick metal bar was welded in behind the jack stowage clamp to help make up for how the surviving metal had become thinner.

Note also that the airbox itself was replaced on that side - with new.

Red Oxide Primer

After body filler comes an appropriate primer. Red Oxide is a perfect choice because it is firstly a catalyzed product - meaning it doesn't shrink after drying - and because it's red and will therefore be a great base for a red topcoat - no coverage issues, and if there's a scrape, it'll be a lot less ugly.

As the images of Scarlet in her dressing gown are extraordinarily similar to the images of her in her new dress, there's no need to provide a large number of images of Scarlet in her oxide primer. However, because it's a flat and not glossy surface, the contrast is a lot better in being able to see some detail through photos. So, here are some selected shots in primer:

Here you can clearly see the reconstructed area on the right side. Note that there are three drain holes close to the rear lid's seal groove; the two in the center are proper for a '63, but the one on the right is from a much younger Karmann Ghia as that's all that was available at the time. However, it is well fitted...

Again, note the reconstructed area on the right. Here you can see that the groove where the lid seal goes is very nice indeed.

Here, not not only the lids themselves, but the support system that lets them be painted.

There is full access to both sides of each lid and there are rods with moveable clamps on them that allow for the supports to be locked into position.

NEXT: Painting Scarlet.

Scarlet's "before" condition can be found here.

Scarlet's restoration is described here.