Why a paint job costs so much

[mr bruce]

Check out what it takes for a sho paint job- British style-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE9UP2NbIVU

[Tommy]

Not being a body shop or paint professional, I did a lot of homework before deciding on the paint for my Cheetah tribute. I selected a Corvette color, Atomic Orange, with some extra metalflake and pearl solids. I was warned by an experienced bodyshop man who does Corvettes exclusively that the paint is notoriously hard to match due to the way the solids distribute during the initial painting. He advised that the entire body including doors and other panels would need to be sprayed from the same batch at the same time and with the panels oriented as they would be on the car (e.g., doors near vertical). All that places an extra burden on the painter with regard to space and timing.

I received a call that the paint was applied and the final clear coat was being buffed out. I drove over to take a look only to find the painter in a state of distress. He had found a flaw in the color coat and was trying to decide what to do. I noted that he was the professional and would have to make the call. But if he tried to touch up that one area and, as we both expected, it did not look right, he'd have to respray the whole car. He decided to skip the touch up and respray the whole car. It turned out well.

My point is that doing a prep and paint job on a custom car is a lot more challenging (and expensive) than typical collision repair work. And that is likely why so many paint shops won't touch a custom job.

[FredG]

Thanks for the video. I had probably painted close to 50 cars in 70's using lacquer, enamel and imron so I found this process interesting. I haven't touched a spray gun since then. The prep is pretty much the same except we didn't have those filler primers. We used red glazing putty for the minor imperfections. Back in the 70's we didn't mix our paint. We ordered it from the store and they mixed it. We could order it in the morning and they delivered it in the afternoon. We used Dupont. The color mixing thing is interesting. We added the thinner or reducer along with any other additives at the shop. All the guns we used were high pressure bottom feeds from Binks or Devilbiss. Same kind he used for the primers. We used 600 grit to cut and then buff. Now there is paper with grit ratings well into the thousands. I do believe the paint now is much more expensive. The options and quality of the masking tapes were much different back then. Striping was a challenge. We had a professional pinstriper come in to do all the thin lines as they were a challenge to do with spray unless you were handy with an air brush.

Fred