I searched back about 4 months (for about 1/2 hour) but could not find a related thread. I have my car, a corvette, ready for paint. I only need to remove the doors and hood and tape that up. I have a painter who would spray it for $500 with basecoat/ clearcoat. He is a good painter and has a helluva spray booth at home. However, he is in a situation such that we don't know when he would be able to paint it for me. I have checked with a few body shops and no one will do it. They can't make money on that. They need the quick insurance jobs to make money. I don't blame them. So, a "none shop" painter with a spray booth is hard to find. When I find one, how much should I have to pay. Again, the car is ready to paint. The price I am looking for does not include color sanding. I realize location makes a lot of difference in some place. I would think that to have one sprayed in California would be a lot more than here in Alabama. Any suggestions are appreciated.
that's hard to say...as you said it's hard to find someone to do it so you are at their mercy. i have a friend with a booth that will let me use it on weekends for free..so i say somewhere between $0 and $500 is fair does the $500 include paint and materials? have you considered Maaco or Abara ? since the prep is all done all they have to do is shoot...and some of those guys there can really shoot paint because that's all they do. i have seen some nice work come from them. then color sand and buff yourself
Who suppies the material, will all the jambs need painted, who masks and wipes it down? not enough info. A good friend of mine gets $2000,he wipes it down ,mask's it, shoots everthing including trunk and under hood,color sands and polish's.He also furnishes' all the materials.(standard colors not House of colors or peals)Depends a lot on your area of the world though.
the other thing to consider as well ,and not saying your work is bad in any way ,alot of guys wont shoot over someone elses body work ,because in the end when someone ask who painted it it will be his name,so they will be hard presses to give you a number with fine tuning the body them selves ,just something ive heard people say they have ran into ,i would say you are looking at two or three hundred in materials alone for mid road stuff and color could change that as well good luck
Paint jobs can be "apples & oranges". There are a lot of variables, that can make the materials cost and manhours vary wildly! Just "How much to spray it?" is not going to give enough information to be able to compare prices or jobs. And then there is the big question of your expectations: "How good do you want it look....and how long do you want it to last?" On the subject of materials cost alone, you can have a difference of $100 to $3,000. Manhours car be maybe 1 day, to hundreds of hours.
Thanks for the replies. I have all paint and clear coat with additives, filters, tape, paper, stirring sticks, lacquer thinner, mixing cups. As I noted, I realize there will be variances due to location. I will mask all, only door jambs need spraying - no trunk, firewall or underhood. I will do final wash. I will remove doors,, hood and replace later. No windows are in car, no trim is on car. What would be a reasonable price in your area?
For $500 in a booth you can't go wrong. The hooker on the corner of my street charges more than that and she includes something called a "buff." Thats more than fair IMO, than again what state are you in Flordia or Alamabma, that might make a difference.
A friend of mine went to a One Day Paint and Body shop. He offered one of the workers, cash to shoot his car on a weekend. He brought his own paint. The car was dropped that morning and he trailered it home that evening. It was even dry because they used the oven. $300
HotRodPaint hit the nail on the head as well as decayed40 . A painters reputation is based on what people see when they are looking at the ENTIRE CAR and not just how slick the paint is ! And the slicker and darker the paint , bad bodywork looks like hell . Even slick white paint can make bad bodywork look like hell . Say the guy paints the car for the $500 bucks , your bodywork looks like hell ( just a thought here ! ) you take it to a local car show and a guy walks up and asks you who painted your car ? Are you going to say "I DID THE BODYWORK , but Larry Joe ONLY LAID THE PAINT ? HELL NO YOU AINT !!!!!! And that guy could be looking down the side of your car getting "SEA SICK" from all the waves and Larry Joe just got screwed out of a possible $10,000 show car job because he squirted your car for $500 bucks and YOU left out the small detail that YOU PREPPED THE CAR ! I charge around $300 to $400 to shoot a car with you prepping and taping and if the body looks like crap I won't touch it . If you keep crying long enough and I get drunk enough to loose my good business thought process and paint the car anyway , I would tell you point blank that if you told anybody I painted that car ,I will have the car stolen , have it crushed to get rid of the evidence , and you and I would go on a hunting trip and you would have an accident loading my 45 ACP or something ! I'm a "painter by trade" can you feel us now ?
Do you have a vo-tech in your area? You can take it to them and see how much to gas it. I have seen some very good jobs come from them and at very good prices. The instructor may shoot it for you for free as a demo for the students. Food for thought.
call one of the local quicky paint shops... Earl Scheib, Maaco, you know.... the "$299 paint job" shops....... ask them, they'd most likely paint it for you if you supply all the paint and materials.......
If you KNOW ITS READY FOR PAINT( I've heard this one before) , then the price you were quoted is reasonable. I will not shoot something that the owner says is "ready to paint". Just too many variables. I dont give a fat rats ass who did /does the body work and /or prep. if I look at it and I dont like what i see, I dont paint it.And I'm no pro, just do it for friends / neighbors. Oh yeah, I dont use "tack rags".
No "tack rags" ? Now I gotta hear this one ? Teach us painters that have used "tack rags" for years a new trick PLEASE ?
Paint, bodywork, whatever, I won't give a quote without seeing the car no matter what the owner says.
I had a car painted several years ago at one of the quickie shops. I did all the body work, primer and prep. I had it painted the original color, so jambs weren't an issue (I back masked them myself to make sure no overspray would get in there and look bad). Removed all trim and drove it up, pulled the bumpers and let them shoot it. Turned out super for a driver. Like someone mentioned above, some of the guys at those places are real good at shooting paint since it is all they do. I didn't trust their body work, thus doing my own. I was real pleased with the results and would do it again.
Listin to HotRodPaint....98% of a paintjob is the prep work. Anybody can run around with a gun & shoot the color on ....Might require extra color sanding & buffing ,But all that too,can be screwed up with lack of quality materials and lack of expeariance. Biggest lie I've heard is "It's ready to paint" ...then we grind off 4-5 previous bad jobs ,redo all the sloppy body work,then get to do it right. Just "pealed off" $6500. worth of Airbrush work on a dragster, Cause when we started sanding, the whole paintjob started chunking off. Took household paint scrappers and and took it all off, thanks to questionable primers and sealers NEVER bonding ,causing the delamination. Do it right the first time ..."ya get what ya pay for"
This Corvette is a non-stock hot rod I assume? Otherwise you will kill any chance of holding the value by low-balling the paint work. We'll assume you really do know your prep work. But I still don't know why any good painter would risk all the finger pointing and bad blood when the sanding starts imprinting or bubbles show up. Even the best get comebacks. $500 bucks is a bargin if you don't have to sign a total no-falt disclaimer.
i built a henry j about 5 years ago and i had earl scheib do it. their standard single stage $350 job on sale for $250 too. it was stripped of all parts, just a roller and that car has sat outside since and it still shines. also, i have never waxed it. the only thing i don't like about their paint is, it is really thick so when it chipps it is hard to touch it up and make it look good.
If its not a regular, licensed, body shop doing the work, but a relatively good painter with a booth doing it in his own home garage, then $300 at the low end, and $500 at the high end---Thats with you supplying everything..I painted a lot of cars in the mid 1970's to early 1980's for $100 a pop if the car owner supplied everything.
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