ndnboy

Ok, so the 66 is a great cruiser and I love her, have gotten the mechanical side worked on and she is a reliable cruiser. I would say the paint job is a 10 footer and have gone back and forth on if I want to drop the major cash on painting her. I saw some beutiful Ponies this past weekend at a local show with recent/nice pait jobs and I got the bug again.

So, is a major project like stripping/bodywork/painting, something a novice (NEVER have done, at all) should even think about doing? Is it best to save up the cash vs trying on my own, and what will I need?

I have many post in the past of rolling/spray paint jobs, how happy were/are you about the process? Would you do it again?

Thanks.

green_blurr

It depends on how bad you want it. I am considering myself a novice at this hobby i was told replacing the quarters wasnt for a noob but i did it and took my time it came out great. I am currently in the body fender stage of my project and i am finding it more time consuming than difficult. 95% of painting a car is prep work.

gibsonxplayer88

im in the same boat as you, and literally just posted a similar thread like three minutes ago haha.

lunarweasel

My goal is to do as much prep work as possible myself, then get it's last final prep and paint done professionally.

zggill04

Having been a body guy myself, I would not suggest a novice attempt to do body work. So many times to the untrained hand it will feel like your body work is smooth but once you start spraying you will see all your little imperfections and will be able to see any body work you have done. Starting out in school we constantly took fenders, hoods ect that were scrap and practiced and practiced. IF your looking for a nice quality paint job I would leave the body and spraying work to a professional. If your looking to make it look ok, then give it a shot, only one way to learn, but I would not want to learn on my classic. I saw a guy try and learn on his galaxy and that thing was doing a bigger wave then you see at a baseball stadium.

kalli

the better you are at it the better it will look.
this is a skill hard learned. some have a bit of talent and learn quicker

I suggest going to a local bodyshop and ask for parts they would throw out. like door panels and similar.
bring it home, sand it, straightenm it paint it
and you'll see hwo good you are ;-)

zggill04

kalli I like the way you think. You don't want your first time to be on such a beautiful car.

ndnboy

I had thought I would try it on a scrap piece to start off with, but like anything else, how many PRACTICE pieces would you need to get it correct.

Might only take one to realize I am in over my head, cheap way to get the bug out and start saving the cash : )

davesanborn

Everyone should think about painting their own car.


You'll need a place to disassemble the car and store all of the removed items. Either way, you'll need cash. Paint material prices have sky-rocketed. Figure at least $600 for BC/CC materials, a little less ifyou're planning on using a single stage paint, and a lot more if you're thinking about metallics and pearls. Air compressor, paint booth anda quality HVLPpaint gun. Mostly, you'll need a LOT of time.


Are you talking about the Sherwin Williams automotive type roll-on paints? I'd stay as far away from this as possible.

There are two ways to paint a car.

The right way.

Remove the hood, fenders, valances, doors and deck lid. Remove the front, rear and all door glass.Remove the headliner and all door opening trim (roof side rail trim/WS). Strip all painted surfaces to bare metal, resolve any bodywork issues, prime/seal with a quality 2k primer, wet sand, realize that you missed about 500 spots when doing your bodywork, redo the bodywork, re-prime, find 50 spots that are still unacceptable, fix them, re-prime.... look at the last few spots that aren't quite right and either fix them or accept the fact that that's the best it's going to get. Use your air hose to blow 6 months worth of bodywork dust off of the car. Tape the car off so thatonly the door jambsare exposed for painting. This is called "jambing" the car. Wipe these areasdown with a good wax/grease removerand shoot your BC/CC. Let dry for a couple days. While waiting for the paint to dry on the jambs, paint the underside of the valances, the inside of the fenders, the underside of the deck lid and hood.When thefreshly painted jambs are dry, tape them off and then install the doors and the fenders.Blow the whole car off again and wipe it down again with the degreaser. Wipe the car down with a tack cloth. With the hood, deck lidand valances placed on body shop racks, paint the cars unibody and the loose hood, deck lid, valances, end caps, headlight buckets and any other loose pieces. After everythings dried (a day or two), re-assemble all of the body panels onto the car, reinstall the headliner and all of the glass, reinstall all of the WS and trim items. Wet sand the car to remove any minor imperfections (orange peel, drips, runs, sags, dead bugs stuck in the paint, etc., etc.). Reassemble any other little items that were removed like the headlights, taillights, antenna, marker lights for '68 and up cars, etc., etc.

The wrong way.

Bring it to MAACO or most any other body shop where youdrop it off on Monday and pick it up on Friday. It's a crap paint job that cuts every possible corner. Sure, it'll look great at first, but the more you look at it, the more crap you'll find that was side-stepped.

Traditional body shops understand what it takes to paint a carcorrectly, that's why most stay away fromthe classics. It's just WAY TOO labor intensive for them to make a profit.

Restoration shops, if they really are a restoration shop and not a fly by night quick fix type shop will charge $20-50k for a good paint job.This money is not to pay a "world classpainter",but for the labor hours.

People see my cars and ask me how much I'd charge to paint theirs? I don't want to tell them no, so instead I briefly explain to them that I place a dollar value on my time, not a large value, but not free labor either, $15 an hour. At this point they're usually still interested. Then I tell them to drop the car off with $25k, leave me alone for a year and then come back with another $25k. This works everytime. Painting my own projects is bad enough, but painting someone elses car? Not interested.

Dave

kalli

yah ... i saw you had the same thoughts there :-)

I believe that some things we do shouldn't be done by us. But the "i did that" pride is priceless