Thread: What's the difference?

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Got a quote on my 37 for a new paint job(maybe soon) and one was for $15,000 which was explained to me as a show winners paint job with wet sanding. The other was $9,000-10,000 and that was for a average drivers paint job which didn't include wet sanding. Now I'm not a painter but I thought all paint was was wet sanded so the finish would be nice and shinny. The $15,000 is just for painting and labor, does not charge for sand blasting. The same with the lower quote, but since I know that my truck doesn't need to have the paint taken down to bare metal except for a few bubbles I'll do the pre work myself and save. Are these prices within range for a quality paint job as this person has a great rep for painting?

$15000 Ummm, if the person has a great reputation for painting, and he is a real artist by the sound of it. Hard to say....I am more of a gearhead on a car, so to me mechanical reliabillity comes first. But to each is own preferance. Just the only difference would be 15 big ones would be better in my pocket or motor than elsewhere. Maybe not the kind of awnser you are after.........but my 3 cents worth.

Southerner I feel the same, know very little about painting, but give me $15,000 towards a BB and I would be in 7th heaven

Is that $15,000 just for the paint (that includes materials and painting labor)?

There's a lot of work (and money) when you start involving stripping the car and working it from front to back to get it to the painting stage. Honestly $15,000 seems very very good for a show winning job if its being stripped down to the bare metal. Price depends on the shape of the car and how far you want to go with it.

the thing is with a quality paint job is how good the base the new paint job is going over . How many mills of paint is on your truck now ?
Most paint manufacturers only recommend 9 mils 10 mils max !
Reason being metal expands and contracts at a different rate then paint , the thicker the paint is the more it has a chance of cracking .

I just had to re-do a 3 year old GM Pontiac Grand Am that had 6 paint jobs on it from the factory that was splitting like crazy .

Do you know whats under the paint job on your truck now or did you buy it this way ? I ask because there could be some hidden stuff that may not show for say another year , then what happens to that 10K paint job you just had done ? If it was me I would strip it down to bare metal and see whats under it all . Then build it up right from the ground up , leaving no unanswered questions . Thats alot of money to spend not knowing .

Just my 2 cents worth

also a lot of shops do not cut/buff depending on the job. They might cut the trash out and buff those areas but other than that, they dont go into detail with it. A show quality cut/buff is top to bottom, meaning roof to rocker. That also includes possible re-clearing.

I would say for 15K that should be bare metal up and blocking down . On Dream Car they did a 15K and made all edges even and block filled before painting. The car was mirror straight. I have heard some of our local shops do high quality show jobs for 5K with a clean base to work from.

As spraytech said you can not have a heavy build up of paint. If its been done a few time's it will need stripping .

How straight is the truck? Does this repaint involve a color change? If you want a "show quality" job it should involve aligning doors, hoods, fenders and grilles and, if a color change is thrown into the mix, ALL of the panels will have to come off anyways to do a "show quality" job on the jambs.
Like was said previously too much paint can be a bad thing but, if it is in good shape, and the mil thickness isn't bad a "quality" job can be done. If I was spending 15K on a paint job it had damn well better be perfect and that truck would be blown apart and it had better be stripped to bare metal just to make sure it stays that way. No, I'm not picky, 15K is a LOT of money which is why I do my own painting...
Mark

well for that it i would think it would be striped all my paint jobs where wet sanded and even sometime from base color to clearand clear to clear coats if you do any of the body work then i would say it may cost you more in the long run and 90 of the job is prep good body work and thin mills will make it last of a long time

Originally Posted by EliteCustoms

Is that $15,000 just for the paint (that includes materials and painting labor)?

There's a lot of work (and money) when you start involving stripping the car and working it from front to back to get it to the painting stage. Honestly $15,000 seems very very good for a show winning job if its being stripped down to the bare metal. Price depends on the shape of the car and how far you want to go with it.

How do you strip to bare metal ? 3 ways I can think off

acid dip
soda blast
walnut shell blast
3M stripping wheel

Okay that's 4 ways there are probably other ways as well, but I use the 3M stripping wheel, it is resonably fast and the cheapest since I use my time. The one I would not use is the acid dipping stripping, because it gets into the sealer and sealed edges of the body making it a herd job digging out the remaining sealer and then resealing. Then some people say that the acid in the dip eats the carbon out of the steel and hardens the steel so that it cracks through car use over time.

Talking of cracks, you do a real killer paint job, you have a nice torquey engine in it, that bigger motor tweaks the panels, so that they all go out of alignment anyway or worse cracks the paint after some good full throttle blasts. This is especially true with your older cars that all bolt together, eg guards, doors, body panels, body to chassis,know what I am saying ?

well if you look at my cars they have been painted i did them and they are nice jobs if i say so my self i did paint many years that are over 15 years old and the body work is older then that did lead them do have mild engines in them and when i wash them i do air dry them there are some small spots were things only rub under a hard pass when i are dry them the hood edge on the gto and the trunk lid on the 50 but no bent body panles? must need to work on more power?

These are muscle cars right ? And with one of your medium powered motors in them, the bodys dont flex ? Not so much the bent panels just the paint starting to crack. I was refering more to the older cars that had a seperate chassis. I had a 38 shev coupe once with a blown 454 chev in it, and when I put my foot in it it used to pop the doors open from the torque and get rubbing where the panels met and cracking paint, especially on the firewall where the mounts bolted onto the chassis.

the 50 before the frame work the pass door would stick abit and lead is crack at top of A post that just is a small 548 blown and the gto frame is box so it good the engine pulls up and rubs a bit on the back side of the hood the 1/4 panles do shake i have been told that just a small 630+ cid but i am working on more power i just like them baby steps you know to much power can be a bad thing

I thought so ,,

Your idea of a medium powerplant is a whopping high horsepower engine to everyone else Still each and every one of us to have the max fun in anyway possible

i may have some bowls for you