Attn. JohnZ-Nor. Fisher Body Paint Process

[ko-lek-tor]

A post by our beloved John(Z) on TC responded to how the line knew if a car received a Z22 tail panel. John said, the Norwood Fisher Body line  had a "run sheet" to determine what options the cars got daily.  http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=357154&page=2

Along the same line of thought, I wondered about paint and how it was determined the order of which car got painted and in what order. I was not even sure where (category) to ask, so this will have to do.

My question would be: Did Nwd. Fisher Body paint several cars the same color at a time? Did the "run sheet" correspond to that color and perhaps, scheduled all orders to be painted a certain color on a certain day or did they have all the colors on hand(RPO colors) & have all the paint guns hanging there and grabbed whatever paint gun that was needed, as ordered, as it came through the line? Thanks  CRG!

[68 Ragtop]

It's covered pretty well in John Z's technical article. The whole article is worth a read, but here is the jist of your question.

Color System: The bodies were sequenced to "batch-paint" by color as much as the build schedule allowed, to minimize the waste of thinner required to clear paint guns between colors. The interior was masked off, the body exterior was tacked-off, and it then entered the main color booth, where it got three coats of acrylic lacquer, sprayed automatically with vertical and horizontal reciprocating spray guns, with a 3-minute "flash" between coats, followed by a 10-minute bake at 200F to "skin" the surface prior to sanding. In the next stage, any surface defects were power- and hand-wet-sanded with mineral spirits, then wiped off prior to entering the final "reflow" oven. This bake lasted 30 minutes at 275F, where the lacquer surface softened and "re-flowed" to a uniform gloss.

http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml

[ko-lek-tor]

Thanks 68RT. I am sorry that I did not search first. I thought I read somewhere, and I did think of John's articles, but did not recall this discussed. Ain't it great getting old?, lol.