Just don't expect them to get to clean, shiny, bare metal. Its not expected for most restorations. Once you get most of the paint off, that makes a good substrate for beginning the process. This is the attitude of 98% of all restorers out there.
As a newby and total amateur back in the day, I didn't know this, so I was terrified and ready to kill somebody when I got what I expected to be shiny bare metal in every crevasse and ended up with a lot of primers, paints, and crud back after spending what I thought was a fortune for totally substandard work. In reality, its NOT substandard. They did what everyone else expects. Once its done to their standards, you can sandpaper the rest, then clean well with metal prep and epoxy prime.
To this day, this is totally unacceptable to me. Its either shiny bare metal, or they haven't finished yet. I don't know whats under what they didn't do right. I would also think (to this day) that different substrates, paint in some places, primer in others, rust in others, may behave differently with my precious and VERY expensive primers and paints. I have watched shows like Overhaulin and Search and Restore and others where the VERY SAME INADEQUATE job was done in other parts of the country and they just dealt with it. Why? Because they HAD to.
So if you are OCD like me, you do it yourself and then you control the quality. AND, save about $600 on the job. It only costs a few hundred at most to do it yourself. I agree with AL VIN!!! mostly tho. If you have only one truck to do in your life, you can always pay the $800 and then use your Makita grinder on the bad parts. TP Tools Skat Blast Cabinets really are worth every penny. I use mine almost every other day on average. Merry Christmas to all!
