[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by tom s

REALLY hard to find someone around here to shoot single stage anymore.My friend with 3 body shops will not paint classic cars.Too much time involved to pass insurance work up.Tom

Insurance work pays good so I can understand that.

I only do single stage under certain circumstances. It has to be a solid color with no metallic to start with.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by tooski

"For starters, the last thing I want to do is put my name on a "driver quality" paint job for everyone else to see."

That's the problem I have. How do you ask a painter to do less than their best which would be a top end job. I've talked to a couple of body/painters. All want to do a top of the line paint job cause their name is on it. That $25k and up job is something I would hesitate to drive on the gravel road and driveway up to my house.

Yeah that's a common issue with most all painters, for good reason.

I don't care for gravel roads or parking lots either and avoid them.

[Greg Reid]

"That $25k and up job is something I would hesitate to drive on the gravel road and driveway up to my house."

1/2 mile each way for me. The perfect day for driving out here is 2 days after a hard rain. No dust, no puddles left

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by John Milner

My next car to paint, I'll be giving SPI products a try I believe. A gallon of their high solids Universal clear and activator appears to cost $384.68 directly from SPI. It mixes 1:1 so you'll have 2 sprayable gallons. A gallon of their 2K primer with activator costs $229.05/gallon. Their Epoxy primer with activator costs $272.54/gallon. Where I'm from, a good quality basecoat costs in the $400-$800/gallon range, depending on what brand you get. Back in September, I sprayed my 69 GTO Warwick Blue with Akzo Nobel basecoat, which I believe is a Sikkens product. A gallon of basecoat and a gallon of reducer costed right at $400. I'm sure a gallon Diamont R&M or Dupont would have easily been twice that much.

There are some issues with that for a painter. If you're painting yourself, then by all means give it a try.

I for one don't want to deal with paint on the other side of the country. If there is an issue with the color the distance thing becomes a big problem.

I had a guy looking for a specific red. Of course red is the most expensive color to spray. We made a couple trips to the local store for some spray out samples that I did for him. Looked at the book for a couple hours. He wasn't thrilled with the colors after spraying samples. That's fine, we'll just keep going until he finds something he likes. I was doing all this no charge by the way.
Then he saw the prices for a gallon of red and about had a stroke, lol. About $1500 a gallon.
So he gets back with me about a red color he's seen online that is sold by some company on the other side of the country and wants to buy that because a gallon was only $150

That poses several problems. For one it's a brand I had never heard of, and I'm not a fan of jumping into a paint job trying to spray something I'm not familiar with. Painters like certain products for a lot of reasons and prefer to stick with that. Generally it's cheap for a reason, lol.

Secondly, seeing a color on a computer screen is drastically different than seeing it in person sprayed on a car, and knowing how picky he was about the red color, I could see this backfiring after ordering everything and shipping it 2000 miles across country. So that turned me off.

I told him it would be best if they could send a sample to spray. He didn't like the idea of paying for a sample and paying shipping on top of that to get it across country just for a simple spray out.

It was just turning into a fiasco so I finally told him I wasn't interested in doing it.

[ScumOne]

Originally Posted by pont3

Okay, I understand the costs of paint have skyrocketed and labor has become unattainable. But in a topic on a different thread it was mentioned that a paint job (without body work) would cost 15k! Is that true?

If that's the case I'm out. Also, are body work labor charges the same as mechanical labor?

I was quoted $12k for a paint job taken down to the metal, minor waves fixed, and then repainted. That was last year up in Prescott, AZ. Given how prices for everything have gone up, $15k might be realistic.

I can see body shops wanting to do it right and now have an "average" paint job with orange peel, etc. I wouldn't want that paint job, either.

In my case I was fortunate. The body shop referenced above was able to match my paint on the panels that needed it, and it's pretty respectable.





There used to be a yellow/green primer bleed at the rear passenger side quarter panel, it's gone now.


I wound up getting 3/4 of the car painted, both sides, doors, trunk lid with rust repair at the retractable antenna, and touch up rock chips in the hood. That cost me $3500. The pics were taken by my wife while I was in Mayo Clinic for a heart transplant, so excuse the angles, etc.

I'm at the end of the journey now that the engine has been upgraded. Once the NVU gauges are dialed in (had to get new ones, defective original order) I'll be good to go. Gratuitous 400 (matching #'s) shot with all new top end.

[Formulajones]

Did you have Randy do it?

[HoovDaddy]

Originally Posted by John Milner

I'm sure a gallon Diamont R&M or Dupont would have easily been twice that much.

I've had just over 20 years of good luck with SPI products, mainly the Epoxy Primer, Universal Clear and Waterborne Wax and Grease Remover. Although my first coat of paint over bare metal always is with PPG DPLF because I can acid wash the body whereas SPI is not compatible with acid wash. I then switch to SPI epoxy for all the block sanding and sealer. It's heavy enough to fill and block sands nicely. My go to for color is PPG Deltron. I find the SPI Clear is soft when compared PPG Concept which I think is more durable. SPI Clear gives excellent show car gloss though. I use both depending on how the car will be used.

I would not cheap out on paint quality, use a top tier paint from one of the top brands. I'm 70 now, I don't really care how long my own paint lasts anymore, but I know from experience that I can get 25 years at least, maybe more on paint doing what I do. I caught up to a guy at the Frankenmuth Autofest last year with a car I did 26 years ago and it's still getting awards with no repairs.

The Viper Red base on this Chevelle was $1000 a gallon in 2016. I shot this over white SPI epoxy reduced as a sealer for added brilliance. This car has SPI Clear. This was a basket case, the only original body panel is the hood. The red is so intense, the color bleeds on most cell phone pics.

This is the orange Camaro I mentioned above, took this pic last September.

[ScumOne]

Originally Posted by Formulajones

Did you have Randy do it?

I had it repainted at Prescott Auto Body & Paint. Turned out pretty decent.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

"That $25k and up job is something I would hesitate to drive on the gravel road and driveway up to my house."

1/2 mile each way for me. The perfect day for driving out here is 2 days after a hard rain. No dust, no puddles left

The funny thing is people will buy a new pickup that costs two or three times that amount, and have no qualms about getting it dirty.

About ten years back I had a show quality paint job put on my daily driver. It's really not that difficult to keep it looking good - I don't follow gravel trucks closely on the highway, I'm careful where park it, and so on. To date it's picked up a couple chips in the rear bumper (that were self inflicted, I backed into a post) but otherwise it looks about the same as when it was just completed.

[Greg Reid]

I have rarely ever seen anyone driving on my road as if they cared anything about their car. This is crusher run by the way. Extremely dusty during dry weather and of course your tire tread picks up a lot of pea sized gravel and slings it out randomly, you drive over washboard surfaces, opposing cars blow by you throwing dust and gravel. And the dust is almost as fine as mortar mix. Gets into everything in the summer.
Still, my paint has held up well. I took this photo a week ago. Painted 9 years ago.

Sent from my moto g stylus (2021) using Tapatalk

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

I have rarely ever seen anyone driving on my road as if they cared anything about their car. This is crusher run by the way. Extremely dusty during dry weather and of course your tire tread picks up a lot of pea sized gravel and slings it out randomly, you drive over washboard surfaces, opposing cars blow by you throwing dust and gravel. And the dust is almost as fine as mortar mix. Gets into everything in the summer.
Still, my paint has held up well. I took this photo a week ago. Painted 9 years ago.

Sent from my moto g stylus (2021) using Tapatalk

And that's the key, if I have to drive on something like that I can go slow enough and take care of the car, but it's the other idiots that want to blow by like their ass is on fire that you have to worry about.

I used to traverse something like that during construction for a while that was about an 1/8 mile long. I got to the point if cars were following I'd pull over and wave them around, then wait to make sure nothing was coming the other direction before I'd start my journey basically idling through there. Hell it wasn't just paint to worry about, I'd get busted windshields from cars flying through there. Fun times but ya gotta do what ya gotta do and I'm never in a hurry anyway.

That was back about the time I started daily driving a 72 blazer and when I got tired of dealing with other people on that section I'd make my own road and drive across the field and just avoid it all together. Truck actually stayed cleaner that way and I didn't get pelted with rocks either.
Neighbors loved that lol

But that's Arizona for ya, it's dry and dusty here and even some of the paved roads can be treacherous. Shucks there are still a lot of dirt roads around as if some towns are still living in the 1800's. But I've lived here long enough to know where not to go.

[Greg Reid]

I pulled out of my driveway one day, slowly creeping up the road to prevent dust as much as possible and what do I see coming my way but a huge dump truck. As soon as I was in sight of him the guy totally shocked me by coming to a complete stop until I had cleared the road.Very considerate of him. Those big bodied trucks really raise a ton of dust and he could have buried me if he wanted to.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

I pulled out of my driveway one day, slowly creeping up the road to prevent dust as much as possible and what do I see coming my way but a huge dump truck. As soon as I was in sight of him the guy totally shocked me by coming to a complete stop until I had cleared the road.Very considerate of him. Those big bodied trucks really raise a ton of dust and he could have buried me if he wanted to.

Wow that's rare. Someone that's actually considerate. Ive never seen that in Arizona. Lol

[Greg Reid]

Yep, unfortunately you are right. Rare indeed... I guess that's why I remember it. It's been at least 7-8 years ago.

[Scott Stoneburg]

I spent just over $800 for the paint to paint my Firebird in 2019. When I looked at decent shops to spray it, it was anywhere from 7000-8000 with the shops expectation that they would have to do no body work