deadbodyman said:
OMG yes,my day always started at 8:00 But being the only painter at most of the shops I worked at it didnt end untill all the paint work was done...at least 2-3 times a week id still be there painting at 2:00 AM.,If I didnt stay people didnt get paid ,no time for pics...and it was usually the boss or a customer that took them when any got shot...with Big Daddy Don Gartlits 1mi.up the road in a small town we did some pretty cool stuff like a Daytona charger with the tall wing...Man that wing is a heavy SOB...BTW I made some progress and got a few pics today ,I'll down load them later tonight when I get home....
Hey brian ,remember when those poleroid instamatics first came out? man was that the sheet or what....LOL every hi tec body shop had one....and mico flish for paint formulas....try handing a painter some of that stuff and see how long he lasts these days....
I had a Polaroid camera that an insurance company loaned me for taking photos of their insureds cars for recording condition. We are not talking about collision work, we are talking when a new insured jumped on board with them I would take photos of the car and write a little report recording previous damage, that sort of thing, filling out a form and then putting it all in an SASE envelope they provided and dropping it in the mail. I did three or four a month and as I remember got about $10 for each one. WHOO HOO.
As I was saying over in a thread about matching a color on a Lotus in the body and paint forum, it is WILD how different painting is today. You had a microfiche with ONE formula and using your mixing bank and knowledge you matched the color. Today they look at the variants and find the closest one and that's about it. I am blown away at how little actual matching they do, it is a lost art that's for sure.
And I am probably the same with estimating, I can barely remember hand writing an est and calculating overlap and blend times and what not. You know I forced myself to use my left hand on the 10 key so I could add up a figure and not have to pickup my pen with the right hand to write the figure on the est sheet.
Still to this day I use both hands darn near equally because I have forced myself to do things like that.
It was damn hard work back then in my shop, but I am so thrilled that I did it. My brother had a mechanical shop a few shops down the building and we built a number of cars together. We walked down to the local old hangout that our dad went to as a kid. We really had it made, it was a wonderful time in my life.
Brian