St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

[Patrick T.]

Way back when in '67, on the assembly line, the new '67 Corvette's received a preliminary and final color buffing with what appears to be an air driven orbital buffer, with maybe a wool pad.

My question is did the assembly line guys open the doors and attempt to buff the door sill, the ends of the doors and the flat vertical area where the door catch would eventually go?

OR, did they just leave the doors closed and buff the outside of the car? I cannot find this information anywhere. Thanks for any St. Louis rules of thumb. PT

[Michael H.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

Patrick,

There was just one quick polish operation of the paint near the end of assembly. The only surfaces that received any polishing at all were basically the horizontal surfaces, such as roof, hood, deck and the top section of the fenders and doors. Nothing below the body line was polished, either by machine or by hand. It was a very fast operation and two workers spent no more than tem minutes on the entire car.

There was very little difference in shine, or reflectivity, before and after the polish operation. The gloss was a result of the "reflow oven" and that produced the shine even in areas like door jambs etc. The "assembly line only" paint was designed to slightly reflow at a certain temp which would some what level the paint and produce the gloss. If you're REALLY talented, you can reproduce this exact finish with a heat gun, even on aftermarket paint that has a higher fluidizer temp, but I wouldn't try it on a fiberglass body. (I have and it works but the temp required to reflow aftermarket paint is near the same as the temp required to melt resin so this is a dangerous experiment)

The door strikers and latch assemblies were already installed in the body before the body went through the paint process. These items were cupped to mask but there was always a line of body color near the base of the striker as the masks didn't completely cover these items. Hope this helps.

[Mike M.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

Hi Michael, good info.
Sounds like the buffing was only intended to cleanup the overspray dust.
I'll pass on the "Heat Gun Technique". Sounds like a thin line between "Flow and Flash"
H. a. N. D.

[Clem Z.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

they still do that today as i have found compound inside the door jams on both my C-5s and C-6

[Patrick T.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

Thanks Michael, that was good information.

As Clem said, sometime during the later years, Bowling Green must have opened up the doors and buffed what they could get to. I checked my '03 Z06 and the door jambs with the hinges are dull, but the door sill and vertical surface with the striker plate was highly polished. PT

[John H.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

Patrick -

Bowling Green paint is base/clear (as are all cars since the mid-80's).

[Gary Bishop]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

I just followed my C6 on the line from start to end. I never saw and buffing or polishing on the line at all. There might be some needed after all inspections if the orange peel is too bad.

[Clem Z.]

Re: St. Louis Plant final color buffing line...

if i remember correctly from my tours at the BG plant they are buffed before they are put on the assy line right after they come from the paint line