Body work and paint

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Dan the man

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I have to question about this. I was watching a car program last night and they said that once a car leaves the metal shop and goes to body work for block sanding and paint that it can take up to 8 months. Now the way I understood it is all the sheet metal work is complete, isn't 8 months to long? I know that prepping for paint isn't easy as they make sure that there's no waves or other imperfections
 
I see how it can take that long. Those shops are providing "best of show" quality paint finishes. That requires cure and shrink time between steps. And the time spent blocking and priming could be hundreds of hours. It could take 2 weeks from the time they start to apply color another 2 weeks cut and buff after a 2 week cure time.
But oh my, the paint finish is so fine one can only take it to car shows in a trailer. And the money ----------
 
DesertRat said:
I see how it can take that long. Those shops are providing "best of show" quality paint finishes. That requires cure and shrink time between steps. And the time spent blocking and priming could be hundreds of hours. It could take 2 weeks from the time they start to apply color another 2 weeks cut and buff after a 2 week cure time.
But oh my, the paint finish is so fine one can only take it to car shows in a trailer. And the money ----------
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Some of those paint job's are just beautiful
 
You have to remember that most shops are working on more than one car at a time. Its also good to give the paint time to cure between steps. This will get you a much better finished product. 6 months sounds reasonable, 8 months not out of the question.
 
There was a drug dealers 1 million + dollar Ferrari repossessed. The paint job alone was 1 million! It was all labor and of course the crushed diamond dust in the paint.
 
MoparMike1974 said:
You have to remember that most shops are working on more than one car at a time. Its also good to give the paint time to cure between steps. This will get you a much better finished product. 6 months sounds reasonable, 8 months not out of the question.
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This is all good information. How long is the cure time?
 
Perhaps they were throwing out some kind of average. Curing of fillers and primers doesn't take that long.
 
1MeanA said:
Perhaps they were throwing out some kind of average. Curing of fillers and primers doesn't take that long.
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Just trying to get a idea of how long that kind of work really takes as it looks involved when watching those guys on tv
 
I personally do paint and body work. I took metallurgy classes when I was younger because I thought I wanted to be a welder. Things changed and I have been doing paint and body for a solid 25 years. Both metal work and prep work take time. I’ve done everything from a quickie paint and body to show winning cars. No paint and body job from start to finish should take that long if that’s the only car being worked on. However, The reason for the 8 month estimate (mentioned before) is multiple jobs at once. Time for shrinkage, out gassing and curing are things of the past. Modern good quality fillers, paints and urethane high solids primers are good to go in a day or so. My personal car, a 1971 Demon, I painted 20 years ago and it still looks good. No shrinkage and no tell tail signs of “old body work”. The clear is showing it’s age but hell, I live in Phoenix and the car hasn’t been in a garage for the past 17 years! So 8 months might be an accurate time frame for a busy shop.
 
I saw that same show he said they normaly have 8 months but was a rush job so was more like 1 month time frame. And did it fast.
Shops work on more than one car. Also stop and DO Quick other small work as well.
The car was shot some fancy Toyota Blue and buffed and returned in less than a month on.the show.
Metal work was done but.
Had to be epoxy, then high build before blocking. Then a skilled crew filled spots, blocked, primed, then blocked, sealer, base and clear. Then buffed and returned to the shop in Houston
 
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Here is my take on it. Metal work is, at least to me, rust repair, dent repair and panel replacement. Once it goes to the body shop, everything else is done. Different shops may have different steps, but likely steps (at least the way I do it) would include:
Prep bare metal and shoot Epoxy primer to protect the metal from rusting, do filler work and sand it to perfection, shoot high build primer, block sand, fix any minor flaws found, more primer, more block sanding, wet sand, paint, clear coat, cut and buff, assemble the car. Every step is time consuming.
 
I do some body work and painting. After all the metal work is done, if it was done half right, I cannot see 8 months as a reality if they are working on the car on a daily basis. The issue, as stated above, is that these are busy shops and your car can sit for days or weeks before someone works on it a day or two, and then it sits again, and then they work on it a bit, and this just keeps on going. Assuming that the car was fully disassembled, and if you have a car were ALL the metal work is correctly done, and they did good work (which is the big if), and someone is working on it of 8 hours a day, I cannot see it going on for more than month just to get it laser straight, into primer and ready for paint. the paint process cutting and buffing another month at the most, again if you have someone working on it 8 hours a day.

Most body shops that I have encountered make money by taking as many long difficult projects, including restoration projects, as they can keep under the roof, and getting money constantly from the owners of these cars as the projects advance. They basically live off the regular collision jobs that go in and out on a daily basis, and are paid by insurance. Those jobs have to be done fast, you cannot keep someone's daily driver in there for months fixing a fender and a bumper. When the collision/insurance jobs are slow, they work on the long term project cars to keep their guys busy, and when the collision/insurance jobs are heavy, the long term projects just sit.
 
340six said:
I saw that same show he said they normaly have 8 months but was a rush job so was more like 1 month time frame. And did it fast.
Shops work on more than one car. Also stop and DO Quick other small work as well.
The car was shot some fancy Toyota Blue and buffed and returned in less than a month on.the show.
Metal work was done but.
Had to be epoxy, then high build before blocking. Then a skilled crew filled spots, blocked, primed, then blocked, sealer, base and clear. Then buffed and returned to the shop in Houston
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That's awesome that you watched the same show. I enjoy watching those shows, it's amazing to see those fabricators work.
 
I had a Demon painted years ago. The guy put on new quarters and did rust repairs and painted it in 4 weeks. He was working full time but was on shift work so got a lot of time off. It cost $5k. It needed to be wet sanded and polished but ended up looking really nice. There are so many variables though. I'm sending mine to paint next year and sure hope its not going to take 8 months.
 
I been doing body and paint for about 50 years at least. I have never restored a car to lazer straight and would take lots more time to do for sure.
It took me 2 years and working a regular job to restore my Scamp and did a good job on it but not perfect but if I made it perfect than it would be a trailer Queen and I built mine to drive not look at.
I did mud the whole car and engine compartment just to get some of the factory imperfections out because filling primer would have been way to thick.
Cure time on clear coat is about one day max on most clear and if you wait to long then it's hard to buff.
This is just my 2 cents and the way I do it.

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Fred Scigliano said:
I been doing body and paint for about 50 years at least. I have never restored a car to lazer straight and would take lots more time to do for sure.
It took me 2 years and working a regular job to restore my Scamp and did a good job on it but not perfect but if I made it perfect than it would be a trailer Queen and I built mine to drive not look at.
I did mud the whole car and engine compartment just to get some of the factory imperfections out because filling primer would have been way to thick.
Cure time on clear coat is about one day max on most clear and if you wait to long then it's hard to buff.
This is just my 2 cents and the way I do it.

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Awesome looking car. What does the plate mean?
 
One thing the car was a GM product black engine bay, under coated, No paint inside car or trunk saved tons of time . Just outside paint and jambed.
Someone else stripped it and blasted
Us guys have to by yourself disassemble, bag box and restore every part to make it cheap enough to do it.
Just the hours alone to scrape, grind, sand, wipe clean. So epoxy, then high build, sand high build, high build again. Before base and clear goes on those area's.
Just think if they would have done the engine bay, inside the trunk, underside hood and trunk, plus inside the cabin that was not done would have taken.
Car would have been an easy 4 times the amount of work if the above was done
 
Eight months is drama and fallacy on a reality show. At 40 hrs a week for eight months you'd have 1280 man hours invested if only one guy worked on it. At $10 an hour that works out to a $12,800 for labor alone. Not counting paint and supplies and overhead. It might be eight months before it's done but it doesn't take eight months to do it. That would be bad business. All drama!
 
Scamp Rhonda said:
Eight months is drama and fallacy on a reality show. At 40 hrs a week for eight months you'd have 1280 man hours invested if only one guy worked on it. At $10 an hour that works out to a $12,800 for labor alone. Not counting paint and supplies and overhead. It might be eight months before it's done but it doesn't take eight months to do it. That would be bad business. All drama!
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Well said my friend.
 
Fred Scigliano said:
Well said my friend.
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I understand that quality takes time, but I thought that 8 months was to long. I asked a body shop that specialized in restoring mustang's and the owner told me that to replace both outer wheel well housing and both quarter panels and have it ready for paint would take around 3-4 weeks and he guaranteed a quality job.
 
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