"Midnight Rider" 1970 C10 SWB Fleetside

[omodified]

I have been working on the bed wood again. I came up with a variant of the black with silver grain highlight. Right now, I am trying to understand if this technique will actually accept an automotive clear coat. I wasn't super happy with the 2 part clear epoxy. This finish was nice and smooth, but it looked a little on the yellow instead of crystal clear, which did not look good over the silver. Here is the new color I tried.




I picked the better of these two samples and I made another sample of the black with silver grain to use for the clear coat test. For the clear coat, I decided on House of Color. After two coats, the clear was absorbed by the wood. The finished is shiny but not smooth.






After two more coats of clear, the surface is now very shiny but still not completely smooth.






After one more coat, the surface is now very smooth. One more coat would ideal, but it will need to be wet sanded first. Will let this dry over the weekend. These turned out as good as I hoped. However, I think the color needs to be somewhere between these two, with less contrast. I'll work on that over this weekend.

[omodified]

I worked on the stain color for the bedwood. This ended up being the exact shade I was looking for. Its not quite black and not quite gray. In fact the finish ended up being gunmetal. I love the way it changes color in the sun depending on the angle you look at it from. I hope I can duplicate it when the time comes!!!










Here are the final two samples that I will test with clearcoat. Same finish as above, but the the grain highlighted in silver.

[omodified]

Got my new truck and trailer today. Super excited!!!










Ahhhh...just kidding. I got something even more incredible than that. The bed wood samples are cut and buffed and they couldn't have turned out any better. This is way more exciting than some old tow rig!!! Now that I know the clear will hold, it's time to clear the latest samples and start prepping the actual bed wood.

[Kronald_70GMC]

Wow! That is crazy. Nice finish

[omodified]

I had to take a few steps back on the build again. I was looking over the doors, fenders and bedsides and I just wasn't happy with the radius of the body lines. None of them matched. So, the best thing to do was to mock everything up again so the lines could be worked out better. But this post isn't necessarily about that. I want to back up to June of this year, right as the cab went on the rotisserie. The front end was mocked up to check the fitment of the grille. I never mentioned it because I wasn't happy with the outcome. The grille was the first NOS purchase I ever made. I'm guessing I bought that thing back in 2015 on EBAY. I basically bought it and placed it directly into storage. When we mocked it up, the fitment wasn't bad. What was bad though, was the black paint for the outlines and the lettering. The letters were all shifted downward and weren't 100% inside the embossment. The outlines around the headlights had the same issue and the LH side was sprayed very thin. For this build, I just couldn't accept this quality.







I kicked around the idea of touching it up or even repainting the black. But this kind of defeats the purpose of using NOS. So, I set out to find another grille shell to buy. I found somebody local that had a few of them. They were willing to trade with me plus cash. I picked through their stash and a few of them had the same issue as mine. I did manage to find one that was beautiful. Or so I thought. I got it home and started polishing it up. It was then that I discovered a decent size dent on the crossbar, right by where the parking light mounts. I tried to gently push the bend out, but it really wouldn't budge. I stuck a flat edge across the surface to show the depth of the dent. Too much for me...





These last few months, I have been trying to locate another NOS grille shell. There weren't any for sale and there haven't been any for sale for months. I sent a message to somebody on Facebook from a 10 month old post. I'm glad I took that chance. I was able to buy the grille and pick it up in Tennessee. It is absolutely gorgeous too with zero imperfections. So, since everything was getting mocked up again, this was a great time to check the grille fitment with everything installed around it. Using NOS center and outer braces I bought on EBAY years ago, things lined up really well. The gaps couldn't look any better. Now, time to work on these body lines.

[D.B]

What some of us will go through for perfection. Very, Very nice build!!

[Shifty One]

The level of awesome is extreme!

I can't wait to see the finished product. Just one thing though, are you actually going to drive it on the crappy streets nowadays?