When we needed a new camera last year, I asked Johanne to get us a new “bomber” camera and she came back with a Canon D10 which is designed to take the shock of dropped and handle the everyday abuse of our shop. It turns out that the camera can also shoot under water! I took these photos of Homer’s newly crafted fish under water, notice the trout that are swimming up next to the shiny painted fish!

Homer is really enjoying making these fish and would like to sell them so if you are interested in purchasing one let me know and I can connect you with Homer

Fish real and fake

Underwater fish

Here are a few more panels that Homer worked on.

Clear coat tint

Tinted clear on aluminum

Last night a friend called me to take a look at his newest obsession, creating a water effect with sheet metal and paint. These panels are beautiful to see in person and I am impressed at how great they look in photographs. The technique for painting the fish is amazing.

Clear coat is not intended to go over bare metal, it typically needs primer or some sort of surface prep but the stuff is so high quality and hard, I have a feeling it will hold up great.

Fish in Clear

Water panel

Clean brake fluid is a must for proper operation of a brake system, proper operation of brakes, reliable brakes? Ferraris 250’s with the Bendix/Bonaldi booster had a reservoir cap with a steel mesh under an aluminum disc to allow the bottle to vent. Under the mesh is a small hole directly into the brake fluid reservoir. As you can see, there is lots of opportunity for crud to get into the fluid from this rusty build up in the mesh. I took the aluminum disc off, made a new spacer ring and welded it onto the cap. I sent the part of to be cad plated and made a new aluminum disc, installed stainless steel wool under the and wrinkle finish painted it. Voila!

FIAT Reservoir lid

Wrinkle finish reservoir

Ferrari Red

A gorgeous Dark red that a prominent Ferrari Historian calls “mature”.

This is just out of the paint shop, no wet sanding or polishing on an overcast day. The camera is one of those heavy duty LUMIX point/shoots.  The car looks particularly amazing right now because it basically has 3 finishes, the glossy red, brushed aluminum and black Excelsior tires from Coker. It is beautiful!

After going through every last little part, we finished the Oliver 77 Diesel. This tractor was purchased new by the current owners father and when Henry passed away, we were asked to fully restore it. As we got to the end of this project it felt similar to completing a car restoration where every little screw, clip, fastener needed to be correct which means multiple runs to the hardware store, industrial catalogs and lathe!

Row Crop Diesel Oliver

1956 Ferrari 750 Monza paint detail

A customer asked about a harlequin bit of paintwork on the boot lid of the 1956 Ferrari 750 Monza. A section of paint was masked and carefully sanded to expose the layers of paint the car has worn. The result is a twelve square inch testament to the heritage of the car. It’s a trait more common to European restorations, and generally unseen in the United States.  Europeans prefer to celebrate history, while many Americans prefer to erase it with perfection being achieved through a sterile final product, and allowing the owner to forget that anyone was ever there -  an oh-so-human reclamation of virginity.

The Monza shows many colors including blue and yellow in addition to more than one shade of red, and a few layers of primer, and the foundation of bare metal clear coated for protection. This badge of visual history is especially rich as the car was born into racing, changing liveries often. We hope to see more cars like this, though few will exhibit as much character.

Ferrari 750 Monza paintwork

Lots of discussion on the proper style of wrinkle finish. I know!!
I feel that the early cars 250/275/330 had a very fine finish, almost a fine “fuzz” if you look from a distance. This is hard to create because the directions on the can say, “3 heavy coats” so naturally you want to put it on real heavy. Well, it is harder to apply 3 light coats–but not too light— almost a gamble when you let the stuff cure, will it wrinkle evenly??!!

The 365/400/412 four cam v-12’s appear to have a more coarse “wrinkle” and a shiner plastic looking finish. I feel that this is a easier finish to duplicate as you can really lay down the paint.

I am excited to post some of the projects at the shop on this blog. We are currently overhauling a Ferrari 365 C/4 engine, a 1987 412 engine. I have a feeling that the 330 GTC engine that we pulled for detail work will need to be broken down for an overhaul as the leak doen numbers look terrible.

I will also post other segments of the restoration of these cars, but no trade secrets will be revealed, I promise.

Steve Markowski