There's been a murder!!

As you will no doubt have seen from the previous posts Big Black is not currently black - more dark green - well we will soon see about that! - If you didnt know the term murdered refers to black cars satin, matte or gloss, murdered out means its black on black (black body and black wheels) check out more cars like this at www.murderedoutrides.com

Take one Dark Green Shogun and add the helping hands of Craig "cdescort" Dillow and Brian "B-Rian" Hull plus a weekend in an industrial estate in Milton Keynes and alot of satin black spray cans and you can do this to!
Day 1 and the first Job was to strip the Shogun of all parts we could - door trims, rear light clusters, rear mounted wheel and mount assembly, rear number plate - you can see Craig and Brian hard at work - bear in mind I took most of the photos so you dont see me working but i assure you i did - HONEST!

You can see the rear light clusters and spare wheel mount removed as well as the bumper mounted lights and rear window wiper

We debaged the front wings as well as the boot we also removed the ECI-Multi V6 3000 stickers from the rear quarters - these where a beast to remove

All door trim and seals where removed to ensure a total coverage - the final box build will cover everything not painted black.  We did discover a very neat little tool box in the rear gate that will be made into a feature in the final install - maybe a small voltage read out or something

Box of bits removed - note the small yellow box on the step - this contains all of the screws to hold all the bits back on - guess who ended up kicking that across the yard!

Once all the trim was removed we where able to start flatting back the paint with hand sanders and 120grit paper - about now we realised we couldn't change my mind - oh well black it is then!

 

See i did work!  and it wouldnt be a proper build if i wasnt showing some ass flesh so there you go!

It started getting dark as we began masking the car

Mr Dillow on the roof  sanding - we thought it was better he did that than me - they are tough trucks but not tough enough to take me on the roof!

 Notice more man flesh - your going to get some ass crack before this build is out

Door partially masked - some nice big builds going in here

and the primer goes on - the flash shows up the wet patches too much but we managed a nice even coat from approx 8 cans

and this is how it was left at the end of day 1 - stripped and primed on the outside ready for day 2

Day 2 Begins with us running some finer grit pads over the primer to get a nice smooth surface

When we arrived on sunday morning Craig had already began masking the doors so we could paint the jams
Those of you that know me will understand how this part killed me - i was itchign to start shooting black but Craig and Brian kept me strong with the words PPPPPP

 

At this point I must give a shout out to Betty Warner who provided all the paper for this masking - Cheers Betty!

Once totally masked we sprayed the jambs, panel gaps and any other areas that would require extra attention/detail

before we flatted back the over spray, tacked the whole car and finally began laying down the black if your feeling bored you can download these pictures and skip between them to see the paint building up - thrilling huh!

My paint spraying technique leaves a lot to be desired but Brian showed me  the way and i managed to eventually do a small section well.  Brian managed to lay down a whole side of paint and it looks fantastic

 

A little tip I learnt from Craig - when spraying in the cold pop the cans into some warm water to thin the paint and get a better finish - it really looked like it worked as this is the final result

Time to start reassembling things - the spare wheel mount was a real state but Brian managed to sand it back and re paint it a treat

I was unsure if I should l;eave the window surrounds glossy, as well as leaving the chrome light protectors but the boys suggested i left the windows alone and the wife said leave the chrome on the protectors - she was right! it looks pretty good to me

Here you can see the rear door that Brian did a great job on and the drivers door that i did (P.S. if anyone has a centre cap for the Shogun wheels let me know my rear offside one has gone AWOL!)

And the finished job - The guys did me proud - we prepared the car well and it shows in the final finish - I know its not everyone's idea of a good paint job but i think it looks mean as hell

 

As far as exterior finish goes I have a few bits to address - the handles and door trim needs brightening up and the rear bumper mounted light clusters need replacing, the wheels will also be refurbished and painted a gun metal grey as will the sill steps (i'm unsure if i should gun metal the bull bars and light protectors)

A Big thanks to Brian and Craig - they will no doubt be popping up in later posts as they help me put Project Big Black together - Next step is to sound deaden the car - updates on that soon as well as a future post regarding the turmoil I had designing a box that would fit!

Until Next Time guys - cheers for reading!