The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop paint, apart or assembled

When I went to a two year Auto Body Tech school, in High School, the industry practice (and how I was taught) was to paint the insides and flanges of everything first then assemble, align and finally paint. This way everything underneath gets painted and it reduces the chances of scratching the paint during reassembly. My shop teacher even went as far as painting under some of the more intricate body trim moldings then masking it off so you reduced the chances of scratches while reinstallation. Now understand, that we were being taught how to perform work in a standard production shop and not a custom shop.

If I had a custom rod shop, with several employees that did this type of work all the time, I would paint everything off the truck then assemble.

My plan (when I get to the point of painting my truck), being a “One Man Band”, with occasional help from my wife, is to follow what I was taught. To me that is my best chance to getting a decent paint job.