I understand and agree with John’s approach. When Sparky’s rise from the ashes began I thought, mostly because the previous owner was an autobody Votech instructor, that it would be an easy completion. I soon learned he had turned his project over to his students. They learned how to sculpt inch plus thick layers of bondo. It was a nightmare. No kidding, the roof had been on the receiving end of a tree fall. They had packed plastic and sculpted it to seemingly symmetrical curves. I was clearly out of my league in fixing that and several of their other messes discovered. I turned the body work and painting over to body shop owner friends. We agreed they would use the work only as fill in to keep their guys busy during slow periods or if one of them needed to work extra hours for whatever reason. It took about four years and the guys did a great job, IMO. The bonus was all of them were old school body repair trained! Plastic was only used at a minimum to cover sanding scratches. They took one part at a time and were paid as each part was completed. That made justifying the expenses more tolerable as far as I was concerned. Added to that, there were many other project elements I needed to complete while they did their work, so it all came together without one impeding the others efforts.
P and B work is expensive! Given how prices have escalated this past 10 years, it’s unlikely I’d undertake a similar effort now.
