[showtime1k]

Originally Posted by timothale

40 years ago I had Miracle (Franchised shops,low cost paint jobs) in northern Calif spray my car that I had prepped and spot primed. The primer spotted areas showed thru. Make sure you use a primer that is compatable with products they use.

good point. i had that problem before. what if you sprayed the areas you touched up and scuffed the clear ready for paint to be sure. that work doesnt show thru.

even though i havnt had that problem since i used regular primer first and then filler primer second.

[WriterDennis]

As I stressed in How To Paint Your Car, the main part of making a paint job a sucess is the body prep (prior to paint) and the buffing and polishing (after the paint). So, if you can get the body straight and smooth, a shop such as Maaco or other similar shop can probably do a good job for you. You just need to talk to some of their past customers if at all possible, and explain to the shop foreman what you expect. If the foreman seems to understand what you are wanting, you can end up with a job well done. Like somone eqrlier mentioned, they can spray a few extra coats so that you have something to color sand and polish. If the foreman doesn't seem to understand what you are talking about, go elsewhere.

Dennis

[showtime1k]

. 4 coats of clear. now is that the presidential for 1400 with the bc/cc. the others ones seem to be single stage

[techron]

Originally Posted by WriterDennis

As I stressed in How To Paint Your Car, the main part of making a paint job a sucess is the body prep (prior to paint) and the buffing and polishing (after the paint). So, if you can get the body straight and smooth, a shop such as Maaco or other similar shop can probably do a good job for you. You just need to talk to some of their past customers if at all possible, and explain to the shop foreman what you expect. If the foreman seems to understand what you are wanting, you can end up with a job well done. Like somone eqrlier mentioned, they can spray a few extra coats so that you have something to color sand and polish. If the foreman doesn't seem to understand what you are talking about, go elsewhere.

Dennis

Dennis W. Parks, I READ YOUR BOOK!!! I have it in front of me right now. As you say in the preface David H. Jacobs jr. wrote it in 1991. I started painting with lacquer in the late 60s. Your rewrite of the book got me up to speed on base coat/clear coat urathane paint and catalists. The does and don'ts and safety procedures. I have painted my pantera with BC/CC and my 64 corvette in black BC/CC. THANKS...

Say Hi to sandy for me...

[1971BB427]

There's a Maaco nearby that advertises that he's the only Maaco that uses PPG paint. I went and saw him when I wanted my car painted and he looked over my bodywork and said he'd need to do a little more to make it perfect.
Then he said he'd do a BC/CC in the color I wanted, but would not guarantee the paint because he didn't know what I had shot. I showed him the receipts ffor all the primer, iller, etc. and he said it was all good, but still needed to add a disclaimer "that some imperfections might show". WTF???
I asked why he needed to go over my work, and still tell me something might show? He "just wanted to be sure I wouldn't be mad if it wasn't perfect".
I told him for the quoted price of $2271 that it better be perfect, or adjust the estimate to a price that would reflect "perfect".
I finally called a local one man shop that does a lot of custom paint and bodywork. He came by the house and looked at the car and gave me a quote of $2,000 to pick it up, paint it, and deliver it back in his enclosed trailer. The work was as good as I could ever ask for, and no baloney or excuses.

[showtime1k]

ok.
do all prep work your self which includes
bodywork and prime over body work only im assuming.
remove trim.
scuff clear coat.

have them paint using ppg paint??
3 to 4 coats of clear. good clear coat, not the cheap one.(for color sanding later)

do you need to buy your own paint to assure this?

if i missed anything correct me.

what price should we be looking at going this route?

[showtime1k]

for the prep when going from one color to another, are you just scuffing the clear to paint new color or must you prime also over the old color.(not going bare metal)

[farna]

I've used Maaco, Earl Schieb (had them out west still in 1985!), and Peach (in Georgia, naturally!) -- all cheap paint job places, but got good paint jobs. As everyone else says, do most of the prep work yourself, and strip everything you can off first. The more prep you do the more careful they'll be with it, in my experience. It's obvious you're doing it for love of the car and you made things easy for them. I figure that anyone who sprays 3-4 cars a day 5-6 days a week ought to be able to do a better job than I can! So it should be better than something an inexperienced guy can do at home.

If the old paint is good -- meaning it's sticks really good (no peeling) and isn't all cracked up all you need to do is scuff it up real good so there's no old wax or grease on it and the new paint will stick. Primer isn't necessary unless there are bare metal spots. They will spray a sealer over the old paint before putting on new though. The sealer is usually a light gray similar to primer, but it may be any color -- or even clear.

[deadbodyman]

First off,prepping a car isnt that ez and nobody can do it right without at least 1yr experiance ,thats every day so why on earth does every newbie think they can do it better than someone with the experiance. out of all the econo shops around Macco might just be the best and most times they'll work with you.just like any other place theres new guys that are just learning and others that have been there a while and know how its done.Thats the main reason some are good and some arent so good just make sure you get the guy with the most experiance to sand the car,putting a sander in the hands of a newbie is a sure way to get a terrible looking paint job no matter who paints it...PREP IS EVERYTHING....
You cant paint on a nice prep job,so what happens is the owner gets all pissed off because the car looks like crap and takes it personally when hes told the truth, he screwd the car up sanding it whether its the wrong grit paper wrong tools (like an electric orbital sander) waves ,gouges or half moons caused by the sanding pad being held too long in one spot or using a 20.00 DA from HF....Theres more to know about prepping a car right than there is to know about the actual painting so doing your own prep work is only good if you have the experiance the paint only shows how well the prep work was done ,thats it...
The guys at Macco sand about 5-10 cars a day so theres only about 1 hr sanding time ,it takes me a day to sand a car right so of coarse mine looks better but my paint jobs cost about 10 times more so what do you expect for 400.00 ???? that wont even cover the cost of my paint.....
For what they charge Macco does a pretty good job and 2,000.00for all that work is a deal but dont expect perfect especially if you prep it yourself and never done it for a living....Theres hundreds of common mistakes made in sanding and prepping a car and just because it was a lot of work and took a long time dont mean you did it well the best you can expect is for it to look like it was done by a diy'er if it looks better than that you did well and maybe got lucky but dont blame the shop if it looks like a cheap paint job,if thats all you paid for.
one more thing....dont be fooled by a shop saying they use PPG....PPG also makes some pretty crappy paint called omini and THATS what they use...not the good stuff,how could they if the good stuff costs more than the job? after all they are only there to make money and pumping out a fair job at a fair price is how they do it if you want them to spend more time on your car then you'll have to pay more...I cant think of any body shop that would even paint a car that someone prepped themselves because theres to much BS involved .be thankful for the ones that still do...
remember this:
theres only three types of work..... good quality, fast ,and cheap....you can only get two so pick the two you want most...example :If you want it good and fast it wont be cheap...or if you want it cheap and fast it wont be good...

[farna]

I understand your position, but with some research and reading even a newbie can do a *decent* prep job. You can't just go out and try to sand/prep without doing some good research first. There have been many paint articles in the rodding magazines that explain this. If you don't have the time or patience you get to pay for it, or it will show in the paint job.

Maaco or wherever will go over what you've done and the better ones will be a bit more diligent looking over a car that at least looks like a lot of effort went into getting it ready for paint. I've had one of the shops call me and tell me that I had an area that needed some more work -- they'd point it out and I could take it back or they could do it and charge extra. I went over and ended up letting them do it for the extra $200 they wanted, wasn't worth it to me to pull it back home and come back out another day. So I ended up with an $800 job instead of the $425 special, but I'm glad I did it.

You're 100% on the right/fast/cheap equation! I wouldn't take a show car to Maaco (etc.), but just to get decent paint on a beater or until I can afford better it's a good deal. I wouldn't expect perfection, just nothing real obvious wrong. There's no arguing that a professionally prepped car is going to have a much better paint job than an amateur job. Not much arguing that the "gunners" at Maaco should be able to do a better job than someone who hasn't done it before either. Charged me about $800 in 2003. His son (who was the helper!) did the flames for nothing because he wanted to try his hand at it -- was his first flame job! Wonderful job, he free handed it all but the left and right sides of the hood look like a template was used!

My last paint job was done by a pro. I did most of the prep work, including spraying the primer. He took one look at it and sent his helper out to assist me with finishing it -- and I thought it was ready to spray. About 5-6 hours later with both of us going over it (me following instructions!) it was acceptable, but that's all the painter would call it. He normally wouldn't have taken a car that someone else had done so much prep to (especially spraying the high-build primer), but he was a friend and did it as long as I promised not to tell people he let me prep it -- and also that if the paint fell off it was MY fault, not his! He knew me well enough to know I understood that before we even started or he wouldn't have, and I wouldn't have blamed him. It still looks good -- no paint problems, just a few chips from driving (it's the wagon in my avatar and photo album).