round my neck of the woods it is tough to find a painter that will even give you a quote or is willing to take on the job.
Nowadays 99% of the body shops are collision shops ...they replace panels and spray paint an get em out the door as fast as possible, that is how they make a living.
When I was in your shoes searchin for a painter/body man I tried many places before I got a bite, and here is what I ended up with,the shop owner basically told me he could NOT give me an estimate.he could not estimate what he would run into as far as rust, dents, this an that on a 55 yr. old pc. of iron & it would be $40/hr. labor + paint & materials FLAT RATE.
Now I had all the panels blasted and clean before taking them to his shop,you will find not many painters that will accept "ready to paint" panels, they want to do the prep and filler work themselves, what they put on top of your prep work they cannot gaurantee as most use a paint system and they insist on using the whole system as they have no control over the off brand primer and prep products you may have used and that just causes them problems & headaches.
At first I scoffed at that until I REALLY looked around and found that it was the goin rate, another shop was $2/hr cheaper but they turned out to be onna them 2yrs+ for a paint job shops!
Many here at the Bolt have waited a yr. or better for paint as most shops work on your truck when they have absolutelly NOTHING ELSE to do, you will hear horror stories of projects setting at a paint shop for months/yrs. without being touched!.
KEEP THAT IN MIND & ASK????.
I was super lucky to get mine in and done in a little less than 3 months, my painter worked with me very well and we had a time line established for completion before we agreed that he would do the work and I put down a cash deposit of $2000 to start the work (highely recomend you get a set time frame for the projects completion).
In the end for total repaint on my 52 including needed body work it was just a bit over $5,000
Im sure you will come in a lot lower without a bed to deal with, I hope ya can find a good shop to take on the work.
Tim
