The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop New Guy with a Dumb Question

That would be me. I added this to the "Amdassador" thread, then realized it was pretty old and probably wouldn't get much traffic. Sooo... I thought I would just strike up my own conversation. I know it will be tough to answer, but maybe someone can give me the benefit of their own personal experiences. I have a 76 3/4 ton Chevy Fleetside, Arizona truck. I have no rust at all, 3 small dents, badly faded, oxidized paint. I have removed the trim and emblems down the sides and have spot welded all of the little rivit holes and primed the welds. I have removed all trim, side and rear windows, windshield is cracked and will be replaced. I have completely stripped the interior, including dash pad, gauge bezel and gages, radio heat controls and vents, seat. Floor pans are good and I have POR15'd them inside and underneath. I have removed the bed and por15 chassis painted the frame and underneath the bed and inside wheel wells. I have re-attached the bed temporarily. Now for the $64K question. What is a ball park price to have the average pro prep for paint inside and out, and give it back to me with 2 coats of poly urethane primer and ready to shoot the color. Told you it would be tough, and I'm really just looking for a few stories on pricing so I have some framework to determine if price quotes I get are outrageous or not. Any info will be much appreciated.......thanks.....trikepapa

What would a 2 bedroom one bath 60 year old house on a 50x140 foot lot in an "ok" neighborhood cost?

Here, about $575,000 in Northern Kentucky may be a little less.

It is REAL hard to ask what this will cost. Go out and ask the shops in your town. They are happy to give you a price. No guesses, not nothing, you get the price.

Now my 64K$ question....... why would you have someone else shoot the primer and you paint it? Or are you planning on having it painted too? And, you are likely going to need to prime the spots were body work was done and block them, then reprime the whole thing. And on the primer, you may not need to do the whole thing anyway. Unless you need "surfacing" or there is bare metal all over, you really don't need to prime it at all. That original paint, sanded well is a great base for your paint. If you spot prime the bare metal spots, block them, then seal the whole thing, that makes sense. But priming the whole thing, sanding it, and then painting it, you are adding a lot of work AND film thickness.

Brian

Thanks Brian, I wasn't going to paint it. A neighbor does subcontract paint and body work for local dealers and on the side, he does body and paint prep and then takes the vehicles to MAACO. He gave me a price of $2,700.00 for him to prep inside and out for single color, he will paint the inside including door jams, under hood, fender and hood edges, polyurethane primer exterior and take it to Maaco to shoot the outside. It was the only price I have been able to get so far and I had no idea if it was cheap, reasonable or outrageous.
When you say "seal the whole thing", what do you mean? Also, what do you think of the neighbor's price? If I decide to do all the prep myself, can you point me to good instructions on using my DA sander and proper procedures for blocking and sealing? One thing I have found is even though my compressor has no leaks, the DA sander drags down and I have to stop allot to let the air build back up. Again, thanks for the info you allready provided and thanks for any more advise you can send my way.......trikepapa

This is very hard to anyone to give advice on. Who knows what kind of work your neighbor is going to do. My experiance has not been good with this sort of arrangement. I have personally seen it only a few times, but when you have a guy "prep" the car and then take it to one of the "McPaint" shops like MAACO, you are throwing away money. You might as well just take it to MAACO yourself. The guy will tell you he gets a "deal" at MAACO and that he will pass that on to you, BS. He tells you that "they spray all day long and they are good at that, it is the prep where they cut corners", again, BS. There is some truth in it, but it just isn't so cut and dry.

MAACO's paint, prep, products, ALL of it is "OK" for a driver in most cases. I have seen some REAL bad work out of them too. And don't, PLEASE, don't let the super nice restored car that is owned by one of the employees sitting out front influence you. God I hate that restored super nice car scam. Your car will NEVER, EVER, look anywhere near that kind of job. Yet they always seem to have one out front "yeah that is one of our painters car that will be painting yours" BS.

Take your truck right to MAACO if you want a cheap paint job and see what they want to do it.

"Seal the whole thing" means that the truck will be sealed with a sealer just prior to painting right in the booth. The sealer is like a primer but needs no sanding. So you apply it, to get a uniform color and substrate, and then just paint right over it in a half hour or so.

You can "Prep" it yourself, sure. But it isn't like we can give you a few tips and you are on your way. Your compressor may be too small and you will be limited to doing small areas at a time.

The first thing you would need to do is have some primer over the bare metal areas. To prime the whole thing is NOT needed if your paint is solid and only faded.

I have to assume any welding you did with trim holes and the like will need some filler work to smooth it out, have you done that?

Brian

I have to agree with MARTINSR. I sure would be cautious when selecting someone to do the final work when he is in turn farming it out. I would certainly cut the middle man. I think I would find some of the local hot rodders and ask them who they would let paint their cars/trucks. The final paint job isn't the place you want to try and save a hundred or two bucks when it will cost much more to fix.