How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

Spent the day getting the frame all prepped for sandblasting. I have to say, those war time welders sure did a fantastic job of welding these boxes. I've never gone through so many Zip disks and flap disks. I also put my air chisel to good use. Loaded it by hand onto my trailer and it's off to the blasters in the morning.

I also painted the inside of the side panel channels. They should be good and sealed for many many years to come.

[Jordan Baker]

Last Friday morning I dropped off the wire-3 box floor/frame and my three new sides at the sandblasters. This was at 0900. At 1230 he called to say everything was done and ready for pickup. As usual, he does a fantastic job.

So most of Saturday from 1000 to 1630hrs was spent doing the POR pre paint steps and then painting. Today I also finished POR'ing the topside of the box floor/frame.

Tomorrow I will start welding in the various bits I had to cut out with the new parts I had made.

[Jordan Baker]

Does anyone have any recommendations for helping to smooth out some of the top side floor pitting?

[Peter Duggan]

Jordan,

That's not pitting, it's patina. Great job on rebuilding the body.

Peter

[Bob Carriere]

Hi Jordan

Following your progress with much interest.

Have you tried using the POR Blue Tie Coat..... it is thick, sandable and self leveling. On a flat surface like your floor you should be able to recover a lot of the pits..... may need some light block sanding between two coats just to remove the high spots.

Remember that the worst color for showing uneven surface is "GLOSSY BLACK" paint and the best paint to hide blemishes is flat OD green.

Good luck.

[Jordan Baker]

Yes Peter it is patina for sure. I left a bullet hole in the one wheel well. Figured that was some good patina.

Ill be painting on the tiecoat primer once I get the sides all welded on. So I can do some sanding.

[Jordan Baker]

Todays small amount of progress. I am sure glad I picked up one of the welding extension cables from Princess Auto last fall. Now I can easily reach everything I need from the shop.

Got one of the four channel end caps welded in. I also welded back in one of the hangers for the 1gal oil can holder. When we recovered this box from the woods I had to cut this hanger as I wasn't able to get to the bolts holding the bracket on. Yes I could have just welded in a brand new piece of channel, but other then my two cuts there wasn't anything wrong with it.