Just have to vent here a bit! Get so frustrated with people sometimes! I think a lot of painters, and customizers are usually artistic and need to create. I know if I am stuck with doing "formula" work, I get bored, frustrated, an uninspired to finish, though I always push through that. An interesting job always gets my enthusiasm up and the creative juices flowing! So....I offer to so some custom paint work on my wonderful nieces' new Honda. She loves pink, so my sister and I decide to surprise her, by having me shoot some pink lace racing stripes on her car, while they are away on the family vacation (though her Dad is not going to be with them the entire week). So I'm ready to go get the car, and Dad decides he doesn't like the idea of his daughter having pink racing stripes on her car. Why? Well...just in case DAD has to borrow the car if he needs to, that people won't think he's gay! Some people really kill me! Like he can't just say (if anyone really does say anything) " It's my daughter's car!" And to really stop me from doing it against his wishes, comes up with a story about sending HIS car to the repair shop, so he needs her car to drive this week, anyway. So it doesn't get done. ( hope my Sis doesn't tell her about our aborted plans! She'd be very upset!) Next...a long term project I'm doing is out to upholstery, so I have some room and time to do a little extra work. So I call up a very old friend, who mentioned that he wanted to get his boattail Riviera painted, whenever I got the chance. So we talk for a few hours, and we come up with a plan to do it in Pearl White, inspect the vinyl top (yuck!) and if it's looking bad, rip it off and do a dark Candy Root Beer roof (interior is brown), with underlayed graphics, maybe lace, cobwebbing, whatever I choose. So, I'm all hepped up about that one, too. So a week later, he calls and tells me his son and he had an argument about the Riv, and his son wants it painted plain old stock white. Because his father isn't going to be around forever, and that's the way he wants the car...the "kid" ain't a kid, either...probably in his 40's! So it is looking like he might insist on doing it original ..BTW, the car is not pristine stock...he's already done some engine work, and a lot of chrome plating in the engine compartment. It is in otherwise, great condition, so it' not a tedious restoration. Just an easy canvas to do some great custom paint, if the old man gets his way. I hate getting all fired up, then disappointed, because people get weird on me, or coerced by non custom car people! Just had to get it off my chest...hoping other custom painters will sympathize!!
Those are challenges, Mr. Chop. Family can go either way, even when they get it back and it turns out as you had intended. As in Exceptional! Nurture the visions man...
i can sympathize. paint the honda white with a rootbeer roof and put the pink racing stripes on the riv...problems solved.
I did some nice , old school flames , heavy , HEAVY rainbow metalflake in a mile of clear ,OK this was JUST on a Derby car , BUT, it was MY backup car , so I put a friend (ex-friend) in the Driver's seat , He took the car home to take a bunch of pics with his family , and neighbor kids , NO BIG DEAL , it was a derby car , kids are meant to have fun, . couple days go by ,,,,, get this , the guy owns a refinishing business , he calls me , shit I'm just a scrub painter , (had quite a few of my things in shows, tho') AND he says his paint is still tacky, "WHAT PAINT?", I asked , "oh, I painted the 99 car sky blue, and I put over a pint of hardener in it , and it's not dry , OK , Granted , it was just enamel , but hardener is not cheap , and it does NOT make paint dry FASTER.(he did not last long in the business)...AND his neighbors brushed their names all over it , anyways Best paint was $500 and , of course a local kid won that with brushed on flames , (I was from 60 miles away)so I didn't expect the paint prize.... but I would have liked to have a chance, I do Love kids , Not so much those ones tho' ....... Good talk , Good vent , I feel your pain ,, Joe
I do P&B for 3 mainline dealerships; trades, auction buys, lot damage and such. I rarely get to flex a creative thought. A friend is bringing in a shark taxidermy mount, wants it pearl white with flames flowing out the gills. Guess you gotta start somewhere!
Better then getting them both painted, and finding out AFTER they didn't want it. That 40 year old "Kid" should go buy his own Riviera instead of demanding his dad fix it so he can inherit it the way HE wants it. What a douche. To even have that conversation with a father is an asshole thing to do.
I thought the same thing. Its sad that people change their minds and chicken shit out of a good thing. If someone was offering to paint my daughter's car or do custom work for my car when they had the time, I'd be grateful! Sounds like someone needs to have his Riv repossessed by someone with style
PSome day you just can't win Chopolds and this looks like it's going to be the whole week. Your friend with the Riv sounds like an older gent I know who decided to go out and buy himself a new pickup and when his son heard about it he threw a fit because his dad had spent "his" money. The man's children watch every penny he spends because they think it is theirs rather than his hard and honestly earned money that he managed to save for his retirement and enjoyment. And maybe your brother in law needs to get a bit outside of his comfort zone once in a while. Poor bugger would have a heart attack if he actually knew how many "gay" people he came in contact with every day.
"Oh, I don't want to be seen in a car with pink stripes, people might think I'm gay!" If you think this, then you have deeper issues about your sexuality (maybe something is suppressed?) As far as the son wanting the car painted his way, I know many that would tell the kid that once it is his, he can do what he wants with it. I would never think of telling my father to do something; I may suggest, but I sure as hell won't tell him. On the brighter side, chopolds, there may be an interesting project coming along next week that you will enjoy. One never knows.
I've seen dudes driving pink and purple cars and I've always assumed it wasn't theirs. Unless they blow me a kiss. That's the game changer.
Like the all the times when people asked if I striped my own vehicle. But the Wifey always calmed me down by saying..."Be nice. They don't know any better"
QUOTE "Oh, I don't want to be seen in a car with pink stripes, people might think I'm gay!" I never knew that sexual orientation was COLOR CODED! I guess that means that every female that drives a BLUE car is a Lesbian! I drive a 48 Dodge BC that is Rose colored (or Pink). A few have made sly comments, but only once. I quickly educated them. Anyone that thinks like that has terminal HUA disease. HUA = Head Up Ass
On inheritance: In a conversation following a common thread, my friend Joe's son told him, in part, that he was looking forward to inheriting the family farm, as it would make a nice retirement home. Joe responded, "Son, the road you're going down, you'll be lucky to take a pocket full of dirt from this place when you leave." Ditto the Riv.
This thread is like that old TV program "The Naked City"..........."There are 8 million stories in New York City;this is one of them...."(old geezers will probably remember it). I had a friend of mine bring me a helmet she had bought for her husband as a birthday present.She explained that when she had showed it to their son(he's eight going on 20)he said,"Dad isn't going to like it;it's got PINK on it!" The pink was where the red fogging around the laced panel had faded out over the silver flake and made it look like there was a slight pink edge.She wanted me to paint something around the edge to cover it up or her husband wouldn't wear it! I offered to let her borrow a helmet that I had painted for one of my mannequins that was ALL PINK and put it in the box for him to open but she didn't think that was a good idea(people have no sense of humor anymore).I finally wound up painting black barbed wire around it to cover it up and he still complained that you could see some pink! I told him to buy another helmet.
I ALWAYS have potential customers that waste my time....They blow the shit out of my phone and Email to get me to do an estimate on their ride. When I send them the quote all I hear is crickets....people don't understand what this shit costs and the time it takes to get something done right. If I call these people back about the estimate they treat me like I'm bothering them. Hard to deal with sometimes. Don't even get me started about all the time wasters/dreamers that want me to drive to see their project.......Jeeez.....
So this means I'm gay? As for the guy and his Riv: If it were me and my son, he would be handcuffed to a tree where he could watch me take my time destroying it with an ax. Bet the chump wants it box stock white so it is easy to sell, it'll be gone the day after the old mans funeral! The son needs to understand what you must loose to gain that inheritance.
Hey, ya gotta do, what ya gotta do......I'm a bit jealous of you guys in Cali, it seems that people have so much more of an adventurous attitude to building cars. Here on the East Coast, most folks do it by formula, strict restoration, or a copy of something they saw in a magazine, FROM CALIFORNIA! VERY, few customers I've dealt with have any sort of "vision" or want to go outside the box, even to embrace a modern trend, or different approach. And I really don't get a lot of custom car stuff, way more muscle car resto's, or mildly modified muscle cars. I wish I could get exclusively custom work! Hell. I've had LOTS, and I mean LOTS of guys come up to me at car shows, and ask if I can paint a 69 Camaro...they are always very specific, as if each car had a different method to be painted! Others will not do a custom paint job on their car unless they see that paint job on the exact same car....if I show a pic of a tu-tone job, with flames in between, on a Camaro, the guy with the El Camino cannot imagine HIS car with the same paint scheme, or similar. But why copy exactly another car????? Well, thanks for the support. I personally know each of the intended owners of the cars would have LOVED the paint I put on their car, just other people get in the way! And the "gay thing" I don't get either, but then again I drive an 'almost' Pink car... "It's Candy Fuschia!" I tell people. And another car I did for myslelf was a 54 Chevy, done in Lavender Pearl, with a dark Candy Purple roof, that some people used to called "pink", I guess they must be color blind as well!
that's as bad as the next door neighbor who didn't pay for the paintwork but think's he's a pro and pick's it apart for you! purp47
You've met the type of person I tend to loath heavily. There's a mindset that defies description. It's that "I better not..." or, "I don't know if anyone would like..." or, "No, I just want it to look exactly like (fill in the blank) cuz...". And this is after they ask you what you think. What's worse, they decide not to have you do it but take your idea and some 1/2 price fuck calls the design his own. Don't fret restoration brother. Some think "Well that's easy cuz you just put it back to the way it was." To that I say with all my heart, FUCK YOU. It's one of the most challenging things you can do with a car. Not too much, not too little, just right. My career has been based in restoration. Some venues are way too much for me. Corvettes come to mind where something has to be exactly this shade/sheen/color/texture/date, etc. Even with full documentation some licknob always knows more than you and might even say you "doctored" your research. It ain't easy by any means. The best you have needs to kept by YOU, until that client has agreed to dive into a RELATIONSHIP with you and your shop. Now some of you, feel free to insert your gay jokes there, but doing something personal on someone's car (sometimes a huge investment in time and $$$$) is indeed a relationship, not a job. You'll find very few who agree with that and from both sides. If the goal is dollars and sense there's other ways to make money, and sometimes way better and easier. This shit is in our DNA. We're made of this. We all get a serious case of ass chap when it's disrespected or taken for granted. I've felt your pain so much I'm immune to it now. Here's a short dialogue: "Hey I want you to restore my (insert car), and I need to know roughly what I'm lookin at." "Well the average body-off restoration on that runs somewhere between 2800 and 3500 hours, plus outsourced things like chrome, upholstery, etc." "Shit at your rates what's left for me?" "You lost me there. What do you mean?" "Well, if I have you do it I'll have every dollar in the car that it's worth!" "Is this your car?" "Yeah, why?" "Just asking, but I'm not following you (I really was)" "There won't be any money left in it when you're done." "Oh, you want a stock broker or an investment counselor. I can't help you there. But I'll do the labor, you buy all the stuff, we show it once when done, sell it, then we get our money back and split the difference. Better plan?" "I'm not gonna do that, it's my car!" "Good afternoon sir, may I help you?" "What?" "We're either starting over or done, you pick..." He left, and I was so glad he did.
Well chopolds, I think you should "borrow" your brother in laws car and repaint it in this pattern and give it back to him. And get creative with it, metalflakes, lace, fades the whole 9 make sure to video tape his reaction and post it here
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