, color-sanded and polished and is now in the assembly stage. Many new parts are still available for these cars and the supply of good used parts is also fairly plentiful.
These cars have a considerable amount of bright-work; polished stainless steel trim which gets dented and scratched over-time. Generally, if the item is available, it is more cost efficient to buy the new one than to spend several hours repairing and polishing the original. In our case there were a couple pieces that we elected to repair because the damage was minor.
Working dents out of trim is essentially the same as metal work on a fender, just smaller. Low spots are carefully raised until the surface is level. Progress is checked by sanding using small sanding blocks, this reveals the low spots and the high spots. Naturally, the use of abrasives in this way leaves scratches which must be removed by using progressively finer grits. Stainless steel is pretty hard. Once the scratches are softened we can start buffing. This is the tedious part but worth every bit of time spent.
We will be installing the engine and the interior in the next few weeks. I was able to purchase a nearly complete used interior in good condition. Since this is not to be a show car we can save the expense of a new, hand stitched interior.
