[shine]

i agree at 15k it should be right. there are many in our industry who do not deliver. sad but true. it's pretty much a given that your personal car will be right, after all your not counting hours

pappy always said " do a fair days work for a fair days pay "

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by mrinvicta

It's sad that most here are missing the whole point.........

No, most don't miss the whole point, we are just chatting and the subject has drifted, no big deal.


I am glad to see the discussion drift the way it has. I hear all too often about people who only do the best work and they don't do anything but the best or tell the people to go away, now THAT is smack talk!

EVERY SINGLE job is different. Yes, I am sure there are some guys who only do the very best they can possibly do on every job AND they get paid for it. But the huge majority of guys do what they are paid to do, they fulfill the customers expectations.

Even the "Hot dogs" who do top knotch restoration every day do some quickie job to help a neighbor or something that is miles from "show".

We STILL don't know what the fee was, what the customers expectaions were on all those cars we see with the less than perfect jobs. I know, I know, it may be a "show" and all but we still don't know how it went down. We don't know how rough that car was and how much the customer tried to get the poor guy doing it to cut the price. We don't know if the customer pulled it out of the shop before it was done because the shop stopped working on it and it was stuffed in the corner only to have some other shop try to finish it over a poorly done foundation. We don't know if the shop owner had the half finished car towed over to the owners house while he as at work and left on his driveway because he had gone six months without pay. We just don't know these things. It could have had a mile of primer piled on it over wavy and scratch filled bodywork then pulled out of that shop and the next poor guy was ONLY paid to paint it. He painted it and the primer under it shrunk all up making his work look bad. There are a million reasons why the "show job" looks less than steller.

Brian

[mr4speed]

Well since I am the one who started this post I will clerify what my initial point was. First off I was not "bashing" the 5 to 10K paintjobs out there, as I know you really cant turn out top notch work at that cost, period. What I was refering to is the big shops out there that ARE charging the big 30-40K for paint work and giving you that same 10K job. When you get up in the six digits for doing over a car then you better be doing flawless work, Im sorry. Looking over all those web sites claiming to do "show quality work" I really wanted to see for myself how good they really were, thats all. If I were to spend that kind of money to hve my own car done, the only shop I would trust is a shop like Aloha. And by the way I dont have any affiliation with those guys what so ever but I am only giving credit were it is certainly well deserved after seeing there work. And for the guys out there who say there is no such thing as a perfect paint job, when and if your lucky enough to see some work by this shop, then you to will see what I mean. Trust me I spent a lot of time looking at these cars and I could see no flaws at all, they really are that good. They had a 70 challenger in the brick building at carlisle just a few feet away from the new challenger, this thing was a deep burgendy, wine color and it had to be the flattest urethane job I have ever seen. Any one who knows how tough it is to get the inside curves of a vehicle smooth and flat with urethane can understand what I am saying, this thing looked like an old laquer job. So any one out there that is looking to redo a car and is going to spend the big money on a full makover dont go by what you see on the internet, because they all look just as good as the next one does. You must see IN PERSON for yourself at the spuratic difference in quality through out the industry. That was the only point I was trying to make, thats it.

[MARTINSR]

I'm with your fourspeed, I get it. There is a shop here in the bay area that gives you work like you are refering to. I was walking thru the last Goodguys and they had a booth in one of the buildings. It was in the south bay, Redwood city auto restroration or something like that. Anyway, they had a 69 Camaro there on display, black and a burgandy candy as I remember. It WAS as near to perfect at you could get. It WAS absolutely stunning and stopped me in my tracks. I was sure to let the owner of the shop know what I thought of it. We talked for quite a while and you could easily tell, he had "IT". And after talking to him, I didn't even have to see the car. If here were right here talking about what it is that makes a car special, you could tell he had "IT".

I wish I had a link to their site, darn it, I thought I had it but I can't find it. They REALLY did some outstanding work.

Brian

[mr4speed]

As posted by MartinSR: It WAS absolutely stunning and stopped me in my tracks.

Now that is EXACTLY what I am talking about.

[adtkart]

You have to keep in mind that you don't see all of the work that comes out of a shop. Because they advertise that they do "Show Quality Paint Jobs", does not mean that they charge "Big Bucks" for every job. It's like saying that a shop can either do collision, or custom work, and not both. Sometimes shops have to take on some work that just pays the bills.

MAACO shops advertise paint jobs at $300-$400. Does that mean that they can't do good paint jobs? I have seen several at local shows that will convince you otherwise. I am sure that they weren't in that price range!

Aaron

[BondoKing]

Nice thread ya'll.. Lots of good points as well... Its all subjective and all money and time dependent... I wish I had customers who were willing to pay "top dollar" for cars that they want only to "show".. they do however want "top dollar" perfectly flat panels for much less than they want to pay..

[adtkart]

BK... That is todays rule of economics. It used to be "An honest days work for an honest days pay". Now everyone thinks the other guy is overpaid for what he does. "Everyone else's job is easier than mine". Since it is easy to drive the cars, it must be easy to fix them. Also the TV shows make it look so easy, and fast. Boyd's crews build complete cars in 8 weeks, even with all the drama. Chip's crew does it in 7 days. It can't be that much to it for it to cost that much!

Aaron

[mr4speed]

Good point to bring up about the 7 day redo on overhaulin. Has anyone here seen in person a car that was done on one of those episodes? Do they really look as good in person as on the show?

[baddbob]

I'd like to take a look at one of those 7day builders , You can bet if there's any amount of serious blocking being done that it's polyester primer doing most of the work given the time constraints. I'm sure the details are missed.

[MARTINSR]

I have said it here many times, what a car looks like on this computer screen, a magazine or on that television means NOTHING to me. I have seen way too many of them in person only to see nothing special. Yes you "can" see something special on here, but only if the photographer WANTS you to see it.

A while ago Barryk showed some photos of a Mustang that Bondoking did. Among those photos was one showing how straight the door was. THAT was one very rare photo that I have looked at on the net that REALLY showed how straight that car is. But who ever took the photo had to go out of his way to make it. Someone else could have taken a hundred pictures of the car and not shown what that photo did.

And on the same note, if there was a flaw in the car unless you gave it a LOT of effort you couln't capture it on film for us to see.

I know this, because I try to take these photos often at work. In doing collision repair we need to document the damage to get paid by the insurance company. Some of this very minor damage means thousands of dollars. A tiny low spot or crown on a quarter panel of a rear ended car means a LOT of labor hours with stripping all parts off that quarter and blend panels and what not. I will take a number of pictures trying to "capture" this damage and be unsuccessful. You have to just catch the right angle and reflection. Any of us could walk up and bend over and see this damage without even trying. But to capture it on the camera, that is a whole different deal.

A car we see pictured here on this computer or magazine or tv could be covered with these flaws, we would never know it.

So, when I see them in this way, I can't possibly put them up on a pedestal for perfection "show quality" work. I certainly can for the overall look, but not for the quality.

But I do know that a number of guys on one car can do some amazing things. We did a car at work for a giveaway last year at Christmas. Azol Nobel paint has a program were they have the shop get a car to be donated and they come in and paint it for free. Of course, this is only a way to get into your shop for a demo, but it does get a car out to a needy family.
Anyway, our shop jumped all over this car and in one day put four door skins on and repaired a badly damaged roof, and both quarters. Then the next day it was primed and blocked the next. This darn car came out looking pretty good for being done so quick. I am NOT talking show car work here (you knew that) but it looked DAMN good. It was done in literally probably only three days work tops, about 80 hours of repair time. It looked darn good. So I could see how a dozen pros could get one of those cars looking pretty nice in a week.

But we know, we KNOW it couldn't have that detail we have been talking about. It could have some pretty straight panels, but not that detail.

Brian

[BIGSKY]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

I have said it here many times, what a car looks like on this computer screen, a magazine or on that television means NOTHING to me...
...And on the same note, if there was a flaw in the car unless you gave it a LOT of effort you couln't capture it on film for us to see.
Brian

So true. I take pictures of the progress on my resto, especially of my questionable bodywork to show, and the little imperfections just don't up in photos..

[p8nter]

I have seen some pretty bad painters win car shows, Its not your painting skills that win...its your buffing skills that win.






Fitzter
www.autorefinishers.com

[mrinvicta]

Originally Posted by p8nter

I have seen some pretty bad painters win car shows, Its not your painting skills that win...its your buffing skills that win.






Fitzter
www.autorefinishers.com

That, along with good bodywork!

[jerw55]

Originally Posted by Arrowhead

Is it just me or is there just something un-natural about perfectly flat planes across different panels on a car? Doesn't a natural "bow" occur along the edges when panels are pressed at the factory? I guess that makes a car "perfect" when they build up the edges so there is a perfectly flat trasition between doors, quaters, trunks and hoods. I know it looks nice to have a perfectly flat relfection as the car drives by, but does it loose some of it's "metal" apprearance?

I'm glad you brought this up Arrow--, I mentioned this to a friend when blocking my 66 chevelle and his mouth just dropped, in an "epiphany" manner. Every crease or body line stamped in a factory press fatigues the metal and you can notice a dip or valley adjacent to every ridge ie. wheel lips, belt-lines. I aactually try to recreate to a lesser extent that very effect. I'll bet you a frosty that 99 out of 100 folks at shows don't notice this under flourescent lighting but something subconsciencally makes them do a double take. As a restorer I tend to watch for this look when people walk by a project of mine. I'm not saying this is the correct or best way of achieving the perfect body, it's just my way. Having access to a body rotiserrie really helps create this look roof to rocker.