66ckurt

Kinda a topic off my rhino line post but how hard would it be for me to tackle the body work of a car. Im an artist of sorts so i got a good eye for detail and seeing the problem but how hard is to to fix those problems

rmodel65

not hard just practice makes perfect and obsessive mentalities are required and patience

66ckurt

im thinking about doing everything up to the color and have a shop do the color and clear.

zmetalmilitia

I am tackling my own body work up to paint. At times I wish I could take it into a body shop and say, Here it is finish it up. But then I get back to it and continue to work more on getting it a little closer to paint. The hardest part I am having is aligning everything up. I am being really picky but that will pay off at paint.Takes a lot of time and paitence. It's not really hard, just a long and slow job. I hope to have it close by next spring/summer.

66ckurt

im planning on having a lot of time with the car while its just a shell, at least a year, so i think this might be a good way to go.

remicks

Time, patience, time, patience, and then some more time. Body work is time consuming, not terribly difficult if you have good attention to detail, which you have when you stated that you are an artist so you should be fine.

HGC

Previousreply was right. If you are an artist you are halfway home. I did body work for a living when I was about 21...back in the early 70s. A lot of it is art. A couple of tips...1. Don't use an orbital sander on body filler. Itwill leave a line where the filler and body meet. Youneed to use an inline sander. Generally those are air tools, not electric. Or, for large areas an electric belt sander will work. As long as the sand paper is moving in a straight line...not vibrating or orbiting. Most consumer electric sanders are orbital, even if they are a rectangular shape. Orbital refers to the motion of the sander..not the shape.When you get down to the final sand it needs to be by hand or block, but again, don't sand around and around. Go back and forth or up and down. 2. Check your work by feeling it it...not by looking at it. Gloss paint brings up faults you can't see in primer. Just rub your hand gently over the area every once in a while while final sanding - making sure you go clear out over into good metal. You will feel the imperfections.

4reboy

depending on how bad the car is, it could be easy or hard. I know I probably couldn't tackle 90% of what my body shop is doing, but my car is/was in really rough shape. But sure if you have enough time and patience you can get it perfect with practice.

eZ

in my opinion the body work is more important than the paint. you can put a 10,000 dollar paint job on a car but if the body work isnt done well. i would rather pay a proffessional to do the body work and then learn how to paint. hardest part about painting is the prep work!