cost of a paint job?

[Marv]

Originally Posted by LazarusLong

My plan to paint mine with a roller and rattle cans is looking gooder and gooder all the time.

If you or a friend can use a paint gun, get some rustoleum or tractor supply tractor paint and use their hardener . and it will surprise you how well it will look. The cost will not be much either.

[LazarusLong]

Originally Posted by ford38v8

Lazarus, You've reactivated many sad memories in most of us. We've all had personal experience with, or have friends who had experiences very much like those you describe.

Sad,ain't it?

Back in the old days before the internet it was tough for a newbie to get good advise or learn what to avoid. I have known people,and I am sure you have too,that got into the hobby with all the enthusiasm in the world,but after spending thousands of dollars to buy a old car and spending thousands more getting it running,lost all their money and their cars due to "pro garage" scams,and just got disgusted and never bought another one.

IMHO,the best advice you can give a newbie is to NEVER leave their car at ANY garage unless they have a written and signed review of the car as it was when dropped off there,and a written estimate as to when the car is to be finished,what is to be done,and how much the total bill will be. There should also be a written and signed clause requiring the shop owner to notify you of any work that he wants or needs to do that will raise the final bill by 10 percent or more,and that failure to notify you and get your written permission to perform the work means you don't have to pay for it.

There should also be a clause in there that mentions storage fees and how much they will be unless there are no storage fees. if this is the case,the estimate should say there will be no storage fees unless the owner of the car doesn't pay his bill within 30 days of the work being finished.

If you/me/we are going to pay these professionals professional fees,they can damn sure conduct themselves in a professional manner.

Any shop owner refusing to do any or all of this should get a simple "No thanks!",and you should take your car somewhere you will get these guarantees.

[B-O-B]

Go to Sherwin Williams & ask for their industrial line. They will mix any color you want & probably most of them can put it in a rattle can for you. They mixed me a qt. of their industrial line enamel that I painted my wire wheels with. Easy to use & plenty of shine. Cost was $20.00 & I have plenty left over .

[Tinker]

LazarusLong, If you have a decent compressor and dont mind painting it yourself I'd suggest shooting it with a cup gun. Hate to bring up HF but they have okay paint guns for $20. Last time I went in they had a special for $5 so I bought 2. Used one for the sealer and then just through it away. Used a decent Eastwood gun for the single stage. Is it perfect... nope. Is it decent, yes. It's only a driver. Spray cans are good for small stuff but It'll cost you more to spray bomb a whole car over spraying it with a gun. Just my opinion.

After prep, sanding, painting a panel truck. I totally understand why a high quality paint job cost what it does.

[LazarusLong]

Originally Posted by Tinker

LazarusLong, If you have a decent compressor and dont mind painting it yourself I'd suggest shooting it will some cup guns. Hate to bring up HF but they have okay paint guns for $20. Last time I went in they had a special for $5 so I bought 2. Used one for the sealer and then just through it away. Used a decent Eastwood gun for the single stage. Is it perfect... nope. Is it decent, yes. It's only a driver. Spray cans are good for small stuff but It'll cost you more to spray bomb a whole car over spraying it with a gun. Just my opinion.

After prep, sanding, painting a panel truck. I totally understand why a high quality paint job cost what it does.

I have a airless spray outfit I bought from Eastwood maybe 15 years ago. I don't use it anymore because I have severe breathing problems now (related to VN and sleeping in the rain and age,not painting) and can't wear a respirator because I don't have enough lung capacity to breathe through the filters. So I try to paint using rollers and spray cans if I have to. For example,I plan on painting my 42 Dodge business coupe a color that Rust-o-leum doesn't offer in quart and gallon cans,so I pretty much don't have any choice,there. Besides,I caught them on sale and already bought enough to paint the car.

Living up a dirt road complicates things because there is no way I can use a spray gun outdoors,even a airless one,and while I can drive to the library or some other public parking lot and paint a car with rollers and spray cans and nobody will say anything,I'm pretty sure they would start howling and shrieking if plugged in my airless spray unit and nobody I know is going to let me paint my car in their home garages. Or at least their wives won't let them let me paint in there.

But I am ok with this. I have no interest in show quality paint jobs to start with. The only reason I even bother to paint them it to preserve them to keep them from rusting,so a few bad paint spots here and there are no tragedy for me. For me the main thing is sanding it down to the bare metal to fix any problems and then putting a couple of good coats of rust-o-leum Marine Primer on the bare metal,although I am now thinking about switching to epoxy primer because that seals the metal from rusting. Either way a roller paint job with fine rollers will do the job just as well as the finest paint gun in the world. You have to sand the primer to paint it anyhow,so what's the big whoop about using a roller instead of a paint gun?


And I just might let MAACO or my buddy with a spray booth with heat shoot the color coats and bake the paint on the 51. If I do all the body work and do all the prime and prep work,the final bill for shooting the color shouldn't be that bad. I damn sure will never be getting any 10 grand or more paint jobs.

[Tinker]

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I hear what your saying. You have to do what you can and need to do. I don't see a 10k+ paint job in the future for me as well. Hence why I painted the truck myself.

[LazarusLong]

Originally Posted by B-O-B

Go to Sherwin Williams & ask for their industrial line. They will mix any color you want & probably most of them can put it in a rattle can for you. They mixed me a qt. of their industrial line enamel that I painted my wire wheels with. Easy to use & plenty of shine. Cost was $20.00 & I have plenty left over .

Very good tip.

Thank you!

[T Scott]

If the body and paint are as you say,"in excellent condition" I would not by any means repaint the car. A good shop can sand down the nicks, apply a little filler and touch up with an air brush or touch up gun. A little wet sanding and buffing will bring the new paint down to the original paint thickness and assuming the color match is OK, the repair becomes invisible.

[39coupe]

For what it's worth, I just had my off-topic 2002 Silverado extended cab pickup repainted a month ago. It was black and the clear went bad. It had a few dings too that needed repair. I took it to a local body shop and they stripped the roof (where the clear was really bad. They fixed the dents and repainted the whole truck (jambs too) for $2,000. Oh yeah, I went from black to Victory Red for this paint job. They did an outstanding job for me. The paint and clear is guaranteed for 5 years. And they did the job in 2 weeks.

[Roger/Sacramento]

My 41 Pickup came from Arizona (not much rust) and I had it bead blasted and primed prior to body work. I did as much body work that I felt comfortable with and had a mobile body man come to my house and do his work there. He had access to a professional paint booth for the painting. My costs were: Blast..$2000 ;Paint...$500 (single stage); Body work and painting...$6200. We did the color sanding and buffing together prior to my assembling by myself. Total cost...$8700. I would hate to think what the cost would have been at a shop.

[waterboychuck]

Roger, you mentioned that you spent $500 on single stage paint. What type of paint was that? I ask because I bought a quart of PPG Concept single stage and it ran $200.

[B-O-B]

Roger/Sacramento: You could probably figure on a long wait to get it finished & 3 times your finished price or more,depending on the body work. I don't even want to get into it when I had the 32 roadster stripped & repainted. Little did I know the guy would use a single edged razor blade to strip the paint. OUCH when I sit down. That was a few years back & it still hurts.

[Roger/Sacramento]

U-TECH paint. I bought it about ten years ago. The painter only charged $ 30 an hour and he did excellent work. Also did a 40 Coupe for me previously. His cost did include some primers and sealers, sandpaper, etc. His painting is so good that I almost didn't color sand the paint.

[GB SISSON]

I'm a brush and roller/flat paint kinda guy, but I know a guy in Seattle, a serious hot rod guy that explained this to me about Maaco.....They have guys that do nothing but spray cars all day long. Day in, day out. They don't also replace fenders, do bondo work or pound out dents. They get really good at what they do. He does his prep and when he's happy with it, they shoot it with the paint of his choice. Makes sense to me. It really doesn't take all that many hours to spray a car. If they get a thousand bucks, they are doing really well. So let's just say the guy sprays paint for ten hours straight (couple hundred gallons?) then the shop gets a hundred bucks an hour.