Why can't normal car guys do paint?

[SteveSS]

I see so many classic cars where the owner turned every bolt then had it sent out for paint. I've never painted a car but why is it so hard? I've thought about buying two pop up garages from Harbor Freight and having at it.

 

[1967coronet440]

First off I don’t paint, but I imagine it’s more than just pulling the trigger on a spray gun. There’s a reason a quality paint job cost what it does, now I’m sure most of us can pull off a 20/20 paint job but a lot of guys have so much into their car they want better than that.

 

[moparnation74]

The painting aspect is not hard....I sent myself to Sikkens paint training school in Atlanta years ago..I have painted 6 full cars on rotisseries...Bodywork and paint, been there and done that and no need to do it again.....

The bodywork is the actual work aspect and takes a lot of time to get right....

Paint is very expensive, tools and equipment are pricey when added up and then you need space to do this task......Some can do it and some do not.....

In the end the ONLY thing people give a SH## about is how the car looks.....

 

[flypaper]

give it a shot and tell us all how easy it is..lol
doing metal work properly is the hardest part and is not easy to do correctly and it is very time consuming
that is why there are soo many hacks out there.

 

[SteveSS]

It's the problem I'm running into with the 1971 Chevelle wagon. The paint is orignal and not terrible. To paint it I'd have to add about $7K to the asking price. I know everyone talks about patina but moparnation74 is right

 

[Cranky]

I've done a decent bit of body work and it's very time consuming but with a car that's pretty good to start with, prepping it for paint is still time consuming and you need the room to do it....and do it right. My painting experience is very limited and have done repair type work and have never painted a whole car but even the repair work gets involved and you still need to have the room to do the work. Swapping engines, doing trans work, rear end work.....basically having a full maintenance shop requires a fairly big shop. It can be done if you are extremely organized.

 

[WileE]

You have to be abnormal to do paint.

 

[eldubb440]

some of us are cursed.......it's like an iceberg. the paint is 10%

 

[MarPar]

calling Pete @5wndwcpe

 

[Bladecutter]

The painting aspect is not hard....I sent myself to Sikkens paint training school in Atlanta years ago..I have painted 6 full cars on rotisseries...Bodywork and paint, been there and done that and no need to do it again.....

The bodywork is the actual work aspect and takes a lot of time to get right....

Paint is very expensive, tools and equipment are pricey when added up and then you need space to do this task......Some can do it and some do not.....

In the end the ONLY thing people give a SH## about is how the car looks.....

Why so many cars in shows wave at You on a walk by. Spend all their dough on everything eIse & try to short sheet the expense of straightening & refinishing. I get a real laugh at guys that hike their pants up, get down on their knee to sight down the side of a car. People with the real eye only need judge from reflections.

 

[66Satellite47]

First off I don’t paint, but I imagine it’s more than just pulling the trigger on a spray gun. There’s a reason a quality paint job cost what it does, now I’m sure most of us can pull off a 20/20 paint job but a lot of guys have so much into their car they want better than that.

I was never able to get better than 50/50!!

 

[Cranky]

I kinda like painting and thought I would be doing much more based on what I was doing with model cars. Body work was a bit hard for me because I was too much of a perfectionist but didn't expect the best but only nice looking paint. Go figure....

 

[slimt]

Ive been painting and in the trade now for some 40 plus years.. all Ive ever known..

now get me to do Mechanics.. I dabble with it.. but in most cases Ive have no clue to what Im doing.,

 

[mmissile]

Painting is a skill, but also something not everybody has a feel for. I was lucky, and it came naturally. I watched other guys struggle with every paint-job they did for decades. Back in the late 80's, I painted 4 new Cadillac limos a night for GM. They were built at Hess and Eisenhardt, in Madison Hts. Mi.

 

[eldubb440]

I like doing the heavy repairs and reconstruction, painting is just part of it

 

[Bladecutter]

Turning wrenches is an exact science, with many reference manuals, job to job is repetitive to areas of types. Straightening & refinishing fall in category of Applied science & never are two jobs exactly alike. I've done plenty of both over 45 years & there is no question as to which is harder & has more heartbreaks.

 

[Bladecutter]

Paint can only look bitchin when applied to a well tuned substrate.....if the surface ain't correct, then it may as well be finished in flat or semi gloss because a shine is only going to make wavy panels look worse.
In my bible, priming & blocking are part of straightening. Really tuning a surface is a tough nut to bust.

 

[Cranky]

There hasn't been all that many times that I've painted but except for one time, they all came out great. It actually surprised me how easy it seemed. The main problem was having a good area to paint as far as dust and humidity goes and I just wasn't willing to do all the work to make a permanent area like that since I just didn't do it all that much. It was much more important to me to do mechanical and machine work. I even sold off all of my wood working machines to concentrate on mechanical and machine work. Woodworking is great but man, it just doesn't mix at all well with the other crafts if you know what I mean. Geez, body working dust is bad enough without woodworking dust thrown in too!! IMO, body and paint work takes a separate shop from everything else and so does woodworking....

 

[slimt]

Paint can only look bitchin when applied to a well tuned substrate.....if the surface ain't correct, then it may as well be finished in flat or semi gloss because a shine is only going to make wavy panels look worse.
In my bible, priming & blocking are part of straightening. Really tuning a surface is a tough nut to bust.

yup.. you just keep working at it till it looks right.. or when the products run out..

 

[Lionized]

An excellent paint job is 90% prep. That's where most jobs go wrong, as has been pointed out.
There's a reason why good work costs so much. It takes time and patience.
I've painted enough in my time to know before the car even goes into the booth how it's going to turn out. Spraying material is the easiest part. Getting to that point in the process takes the most skills.