Don, she`s Beautiful !!!
In the paint and body shops I apprenticed and then painted in, there is a lot going on under that beautiful paintwork..
First, there is the actual body work, a product like bondo, etc., then several coats of primer+sometimes a sealer coat, then sometimes a hardener mixed with base color coat and then clear coat, or a combination of color and clear paint..
That is a LOT of material on there, much more than the robots do on a new car they painted.. Because they are starting with new, perfect, flat, panels with no defects and applying the first ever paint to it..
Whenever I have measured a repaired spot on a Client`s vehicle with my Total Paint Thickness Meter, there is much more total material on that repaired part than the original paint around it..
All this material has to dry from the beginning - the first bottom layer and then up..
If you can smell paint, it is really not completely dry under there..
Can one get away with baking under heat, etc., all those layers enough to buff out the top layer and give it back to you ? Yes, but they know how much they can rub on it with a machine, before it gets too heated up and then causes problems..
Good luck with this !
Dan F
