Hey everyone… we’ve attached the Paint Booth Instructions for everyone to use… good luck… and don’t forget to visit our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Duplicolor and let us know how your projects are working out…

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Ah yes one of my favorite segments……..because I am the only one on camera. LOL! Alright that’s enough of that!

Anyways in this weeks webisode we take care of a much-needed wheel upgrade on the Elco. No DONKS on this ride! This is a muscle car! We get a hold of a nice new set of aluminum Torque Thrust wheels and paint’em up! Wow, paint a brand new pair of wheels??? Who would do such a thing!? We do and so can anyone else! We break out our Wheel Paint Line and two tone these wheels something fierce and I think you will love the end result. Once the new shoes get mounted up with those raised white letters and two tone Torque Thrusts, it really starts to bring the Elco together. Check it out!!!

Next week we dive in head first into the interior of this ride. MAN WHAT A MESS!!! It is pretty amazing how we turn a 30 year old interior into something worth saving with our Vinyl and Fabric Paint.

We knew we couldn’t cut any corners on the “half and half” project when we started and this week was no exception. When we pulled that nasty blue carpet off the interior floor we were surprised at the amount of rust we found. This was one of the rare instances where we actually worked on both halves of the car. It didn’t make sense to only treat half of the rust because anything untreated would have continued to spread and ultimately ruin our project. At Dupli-Color® we aim to restore, restyle and protect any project, so we were obligated to stop the rust out of basic principle (and a little common sense).

Our first step was to sand all the surface rust, which helps to identify the really affected areas. After we cleaned it up we went right to the Rust Fix® application, which basically stops rust on contact. We treated the entire floor just to be safe and then it was on to the door panels. The door panels had definitely seen better days and were really faded from 30yrs worth of sun exposure. You’ll see in the episode how we drenched these with Prep Spray… I think we cleaned them at least 3 times. We stuck with a black them on the interior and just used some Silver Vinyl & Fabric Paint for accents. Personally, I think the transformation was remarkable, but I’ll let you decide.

Want to see how to give a 30yr old car a well-needed facelift? Check it out and you’ll be amazed at the results. Make sure to stay tuned next week when we tackle the most distinctive part of the Elco; the truckbed!

So, the Elco’s engine bay was essentially finished at this point and the next item on our checklist was the underbelly…and let me tell you – it wasn’t pretty. We had 30 yrs of brake dust, road grime, dirt and surface rust to tackle before we could even think about reaching for the paint cans.

Now you’ll probably notice the whole 3 seconds of my demonstrated scuffing technique, but what you don’t know is that it took quite a while and quite a few scuff pads to knock all the junk off that frame. And I’m still not sure how I ended up with all the dirty work and B2 got the “oh so hard” task of removing the wheels, but I digress… Anyways, once I had that frame scuffed down to the paint I really had to drench it with Dupli-Color® Prep Spray because the dust in that warehouse was unbelievable. After waiting for the Prep Spray to dry it was a quick mask job before getting to the fun part – painting. We decided on VHT® Roll Bar & Chassis for the frame and I have to admit that it ranks with some of my favorite products. It can take a beating and still look great; which was exactly what we wanted for the not-so-soft underbelly of the Elco.

After I had taken care of all the hard work (scuffing, cleaning, painting the frame, masking everything off, etc.), B2 magically appears with his Dupli-Color® Undercoating looking to steal my thunder… Let me tell you, as soon as those cameras went live he was like a hog at the trough. Ok, maybe not that bad… Well, surprisingly he did a pretty nice job and managed not to mess up my beautiful paint job. Once he knocked that one out, we were slapping the brake drum back on and checking the list again.

Next up — the wheels! Definitely tune in for this one next week and see how we roll with a 2-tone paint job!

I would like to start by highlighting the golden rule of any paint project: PREP is key! Yep, it’s just that simple… So, when your buddy says you messed up the paint job you can always refer to the footage of him exhibiting a rushed and sloppy prep technique… Hypothetically speaking of course…

Ok, that being said, the worst part of any project has got to be the prep. It’s a necessary buzzkill though, since every great paint job starts with great prep. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind getting down and dirty, but it’s just so hard not to jump right into painting something especially when it’s a cool paint like VHT® Wrinkle Plus™. I guess that’s just the anticipation that really kicks in at the beginning. Now, we finished our project in about 2 months, so I can’t even imagine the delayed gratification that comes with a long-term resto job!

Our resto job for this episode included a valve cover, some accessory brackets, the cooling fan and the air cleaner housing. Shooting this segment was probably my favorite since we were putting the finishing touches under the hood and it was visually starting to come together.

Check it out and stay tuned next week to see how we tackle the Elco’s underbelly!

I hope you all are enjoying my poor acting skills so far…LOL. Well DCTV isn’t about acting, it’s about learning and seeing what can be done using Dupli-Color and VHT products on your own vehicle. In this episode B3 and I continue work under the hood. We refinish the Valve cover, engine accessory brackets, cooling fan and air cleaner housing. One of the products we use is our unique VHT Wrinkle Plus. This is one of my favorite products and something I have used on my own ‘79 Malibu as well. You will see what I mean once you check it out. What you don’t see is how many times B3 ran the paint on that valve cover…..man… I am always fixing his work!!! When is that boy gonna learn!?!? Maybe he should have let Jessie take over…..Oooooo! Just kidding Bri!!!

At the end of this webisode you get a quick look at what the engine starts to look like as we start bolting things back together. Make sure you stick around for next weeks episode because we start to show some love the underside of the Elco.

So it was up to me, Brian (aka “B2”) to locate a vehicle for our restoration challenge since I am the resident car guy and known for my fleet of cars. As the other Brian (“B3”) mentioned, I wanted to get a hold of another Cutlass (yes it is an addiction). I had to resist this time because we needed something in which we could use the majority of our products on. We also wanted something that was different, original, unmolested and relatively rust and dent free since we didn’t have the time or equipment to repair any major damage. We also wanted to choose a vehicle that many DIYers might be familiar with.

The vehicle of choice was a two tone powder blue 1979 Chevy El Camino. The El Camino was absolutely PERFECT for what we envisioned. We could use most of the products we offer including our Truck Bed coating. It is a TRUCK after all.

Since the El Camino was going to be used as a prop for our quickly approaching AAPEX trade show in Las Vegas we had to work very quickly. At the same time we wanted it to be unlike any other vehicle there and we also wanted the ability to drive the Elco to local car shows if we wanted to. The concept was to demonstrate how anyone could restore a vehicle using Dupli-Color and VHT products in their own garage. So why not create a real life representation of this! HOW DIFFERENT WOULD THAT BE!!! We decided to restore ONLY HALF of this vehicle. Yeah, laugh it up now. You will be amazed how this car gets transformed into a looker instead of a laugher!

In this first webisode it all starts under the hood where we tear into the engine bay. We had to clean up 30 years worth of grease in order to get it all ready for paint. Tune in and follow along each week as we restore each area of this Elco with detailed step-by-step instructions.

I remember thinking, “what had we gotten ourselves into…” as the sun-beaten powder blue beast came to rest on the 3rd floor of the warehouse. We had scarcely two months to get it shipped out for the AAPEX Show and time was ticking. There was also the small detail that we had to precisely finish only one half, which proved to be more work than a complete restoration. There was no two ways about it; it was “go time” and it started under the hood.

I will say that we had managed to do our homework on this project, which is surprising considering the fact that we could barely decide on the vehicle. I wanted to go the Jeep route and the other Brian (or “B2” to avoid confusion since we share the same name) couldn’t get anything besides Cutlass out of his head. The only solution we could agree upon was to let the project objectives decide the vehicle and so we came up with some criteria:

1. It had to have potential and look like a car we’d want to drive when we finished it (I’ll admit, I was skeptical on the old ’79 Camino meeting this one.)
2. It had to have a seriously bad paint scheme (um, faded powder blue? Check that one off the list.)
3. It couldn’t have too much rust (we’re only paint guys, not body shop pros, so why bite off more than we can chew)
4. It needed to be somewhat local (the clock was still ticking…)
5. Lastly, it needed to highlight Paint Shop and our Truck Bed coating (we’d done trucks in the past, so the El Camino was a perfect fit)

Our plan of attack was to start under the hood and get the really intricate work done first. We knew going in that we would need to spend some considerable time cleaning, especially since we wanted to paint the engine without taking it out…

Wanna see how we did it? Check out our first episode for the complete step-by-step process and stay tuned for next week to see the finishing touches under the hood…

Follow us throughout the fall as we do our own restoration of a 1979 Chevy El Camino. Each episode will feature How To’s and DIY tips as we show you how to take your ride from tired to tricked with Dupli-Color® and VHT® products.