Projects Eight Thousand Dollars for a paint job?

I would like to apologize to every auto painter on the hamb. I've always thought 8 grand for a paint job was a bit of a ripoff. That is until we decided to do our own.
Now I get it. For the amount of labor involved, 8 grand may well be a steal. We've been color sanding our clearcoat every Sunday for a month and a half. We still have to go through the entire polishing process, so at best we are half way there. I have gained great respect for every painter out there. If we consider all our time and materials I doubt we made minimum wage. You painters are an amazing bunch!

Here's a photo of our 57 Chrysler after color sanding. We still have a LONG way to go!

 

x2..It was fun when I was younger, but I'm thinkin' the next one may get the roller and brush technique :-/

Paul

 

8 grand is cheap! Im to cheep to pay it, but i have done hundreds of paint jobs. After all the labor and materials, it adds up fast! To do it right, it is much more than 8k, i dont care what anyone says. No such thing as cheap and fast.

Your ride looks great, most people dont know what goes into bodyworking and painting something. Spread the word.....

 

As the old saying goes....

Cheap, Fast, or High Quality.

You can only have 2 of the 3 at any one time.

 

Painters, and their bosses if they aren't self employed, like to eat and feed their families too. Time is money...............

Nice of you to acknowledge that.

 

Apology accepted.....NOW GO AND BUFF THAT MONSTER!

 

People always are always astounded when they ask me to quote them doing body work and spraying their vehicle. They expect it to cost $200. Most people don't understand the amount of hours that go into it.

A gallon of clear is $250 for f sake.

Anyways, get some pics up after it's buffed out. I like the color combo.

 

thanks for spreading the word. hard to convince people, if they have not done any of the steps required to get a car, from dull and rusty, to new looking.

 

DAMN IT! EVERY time I get on this message board I'm forced to add yet another vehicle to my "wish list". Now I gotta add a 57 Chrysler. Where am I supposed to park all these cars?!?

Beautiful car! Can't wait to see it all finished up (but probably not as much as you)!

 

Do what I do,
Park them in the next to the vault, that's inside the climate controlled airplane hanger in the backyard that's all shaded by money trees . Right about then, my alarm goes off.

Or you could find out what this guy does,
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=694038

 

Most rigs need many of hours of work before the paint is sprayed when they get to the painter too. Usually they need many hours of block sanding before the painter is ready to start laying on the color along with the work after the color is sprayed that car owners don't take into consideration.

 

hahaha! That's funny Chuck! I'm so used to minimum wage, working at McDonalds would mean I got a raise!
Just like the incredible stuff you do, it's not about money, but the love of it, and the artistic gratification. That, and most of us artsy guys aren't real bright

 

ok boys, i have to have a say on this also. up until i closed up we did it all here. may still do one sometime for the public. anyway on just one truck let me give you the lowdown on this. first we spent almost a moth of fixing all the body damage.replaced a panel and added a few patches here and there.then time to prime this baby.after shooting the primer it was time to block. and block and block.then tape her up.then we shot the color. 4 coats of base. then we added a complete flame job. from front to almost the back some long flames here. then we shot the clear abot 4 coats of that. then comes the c olor sanding. i think we started with 800 or 1000. dont remember for sure on this one. then on to 1500 then on to 2000 then finally 2500.then comes the buffing. son ended up buffing this complete truck 3 times progress on up to almost water for compound.finally we washed and hand waxed this baby.my god this thing is the slickest thing ive ever seen and damn fine job if i say so myself, witch i am. lol. almost 3 months of constant work to get the best paint ive ever seen.and now we are broke.after almost 1000. for materials.i get one hell of a deal on paint and s. paper.we have exactly 2000. for our pockets. now we didnt add in all the electricity that our compresser used or the money lost on quick jobs because this thing is taking up floor space.this was done for a friend who was not rollin in money.so for some reason we did all that work and got 3000.ill never paint for a friend again.lol anyway he brings his brother with him to pick it up and he tells me hes from the L.A. area. his words... if you could pick up shop and come to cali would would be busy 24hrs a day.and now his words not mine, and hes into cars so im thinkin he knows what hes talkin about... says that this paint job would bring atleast 12,000 to 15,000. after they picked me up off the floor. i was speechless.around here you would not touch the first car if you quoted that kinda money. here 3000. is pushing the limits.i still love to say we outlaw steel did that paint, but to be honest, thats way to much work for so little return. so we started doing just ours and people still ask us how much to make mine look like that, 1500. enough?. they sure dont like it when you start explaining the process to them then tellin them a low fiqure to us but way, way to much for them lol

 

The bug eyed jaw dropping look is oh so too common, but to do a paint job for what those customers want to pay, I would not want to put my name on it, and could not work for as low of a wage that would be necessary to put the time necessary to make it something I could put my name on.

All it takes is a couple people to see those quick cheap jobs if I person so chooses to do them because of lack of other work, and then the real customers willing to pay for what they want, will see them and say "I aint taken my car to the place that sprayed that shit job."

Brian

 

Your post would be so much more fun to read if you broke it up into a few paragraphs.

I've had two cars painted in 20 years, first one was $5K and the second one was $15K+. The latter was the Mercury, and I'm not even including other aspects of the car. I think if folks break down the time it takes to work on something, imagine if someone worked on your car full time for 2 months. Now add in materials.

 

I do not understand the over a month to color sand . . wow. Was the finish like a beach?? If not, you certainly are not doing it correctly. I know everyone moves at a different pace . . but something is wrong. In most cases ( average size car ) I can cut AND buff in 8 - 9 hours. But it depends on lots of things. Certainly double that time would do any size car you can imagine.

 

you are forgiven......

 

I agree on the cost of a paint job reflecting the time and effort involved...now let's talk about the price of doing a chopped top

I love it when people tell me how much they "think" a chop should cost, and how it's "not that much work"

Eleven years after my first one and I'm still learning...I have a ton of respect for you painters!

 

I was grinning, reading your post Chaz. Unless you've done it you don't have a clue. Pros have some time saving "tricks of the trade" that save time and labor and they've done it enough to save time where possible. All that being said it still takes time...

 

yep. It Be worth it ..if I had the cash

 

Yet there seems to be a backlash against against primer or old crusty paint. $$$ is why most stay that way. Yes, i would agree that color sanding does give you a better finish, but all the parts and pieces i have painted over the years went on nice and glossy and didn't need color sanding.

The amount of work/cash to get a nice paint job is why so many are forced to do it themselves or leave it in primer.

 

Perfect example of why we see so many "satin" jobs out there. Any clown can lay down a satin job and see get decent results, plus it hides a lot of little stuff that would stick out on a high gloss job. Most of us can't afford the extra $5000-$8000 for a decent paint job much less a $15,000-$20,000 custom show job. My brother painted his car twice and I have a few friends that have done their own rides. The jobs all look very nice but they all required lots and lots of man-hours to get that way and still required a big stack of cash for materials.

 

Thank You!
A lot of people don't understand why it costs so much.
There are also different levels of quality for different prices.
I do one level of quality, and it isn't cheap.
Those who want a lower level can go somewhere else.
I was at a Show&Shine yesterday with a friend.
He was admiring a candy with ghost flames paint job.
I told him there is probably $3000. in liquid on that car.
He just about fell over,then decided we should do his car in single stage.

 

Yep, I gained a whole new respect for body and paint when I helped my painter buddy do my coupe. I was doing a lot of the "unskilled" labor stuff, I couldn't believe how much was actually involved.

 

I'm guessing "marry rich"..? Shit, too late for that one! LOL

 

Once its ready, sitting in the booth and the paint is being mixed ; well its over pretty quick. Blink a few times and you'll miss it.
I don't think anyone has a clue of what it takes to get to that "ready" part without actually doing it. You can be close to ready for weeks

I'm also wondering why its taking so long and so hard to wet sand. The only thing I can think is it sat a week , was fully cured before wet sanding started.
By now the material is bound to be hard as hell to get rubbed back up.

 

Waiting on Nash29 to chime in. 200 bucks and 8 hours later, he's wininng awards.

Reality is that is takes time. If one doesn't have the time, than you have to pay someone else for the time. It adds up quick. The actual time to spray the paint is nothing compared to the work needed to get it ready to spray.


Nice post.

 

LOL Haven't heard that name in a while. He got banned so we don't have to worry about his rants about painting a car for $50 and using a straw to blow the paint on the car.

 

I painted mine myself, well, I should say I blocked it, primed it, blocked it again, primed it again, blocked it with 400 grit, took it all apart, taped it off, then I towed it to a friends body shop and he put it in his booth and shot 2 coats of color and 3 coats of clear. The next day I towed it home and started reassembly. That was last June. I drove the car over the summer and in November I started to color sand it, 1500 grit then 2000 grit wet. The clear was cured good and hard and I learned that I should have color sanded it after a couple of days. The whole job turned out way better than I thought it was going to. It took me about 40 or 50 hours to color sand and buff it. When I pull it outside the trees reflect like your looking into a mirror, and the Ford script on the step plates is a perfect reverse image, that said, If anyone wants to send thier car to me I'll save you some money on the paint, I can't see paying $8000.00 for a paint job, hell, I'd do it for $7,890.00. It was a great experience and I'm retired so I've got the time, but never again. Those guys who paint, earn the money they make, period !

And oh yeah, my car is half the size of Chaz's!!! So I'd wanna bump that $7,890.00 a bit.

 

I'm in the process of prepping my 40 Ford truck for paint. I had a door that needed patch panels, welding and finishing. I have over 35 hours into that door alone and the primer I'm using costs over a hundred bucks a gallon. There is just no way to explain to someone why paint jobs cost what they do. Your first repair, prime, block and shoot job will open your eyes. My truck is going off to a body shop in pieces for the SSU and it's going to be worth what ever it costs. The guy who is squirting it is a professional and takes pains to make sure it comes out good. He needs to make his pay.