Black Jack: Working up to slicks

[General karthief]

Story time:
Years ago in a city not far away my Grandparents had a body shop, they got a contract to repair/paint damaged postal Jeeps, easy money, they provided paint and body parts, paint came in 55 gallon barrels, the delivery driver gave them the usual paperwork, MSDS sheet, a spec sheet and some other papers including the bill for the paint. My Grandmother showed them they were being gouged for the paint/materials, showing them a different distributors prices were a bit more than half the cost for white paint. She was told it was the wrong color white
They painted 6 Jeeps, 5 were the lower cost paint and one was the original paint company's paint.
Upon inspection they could not tell the Jeep with the original paint from the others and she showed where the cost to paint 5 Jeeps was just slightly more than painting 1 Jeep with the original paint.
They still refused to change paint distributors,
Imagine writing a check (does anybody do that anymore?) for a 55 gallon drum of paint today?????

 

[FastDriver]

Noobz, I've never really considered doing it myself until the last couple days. Undoubtedly, I'm going to suck at it, but I just do not want to put $9k into a maybe $15k car. I probably won't go it alone, but the thought has crossed my mind.

I'm getting more and more social with the car community, here in my area. Maybe a better option will come up soon.

 

[AeroCoupe]

I honestly think that if you were willing to pull the car apart and get it where all they had to do was some body work and shoot the paint the cost would come down quite a bit. You would just have to be willing to put it back together and deal with getting all the bits properly aligned. This is what I am going to do on my 70 F100 when the time comes.

Find an independent painter in the community and have a couple adult beverages or whatever and see what is driving the cost and what you can do to mitigate the hours.

 

[RaggedGT]

Just clear coat over it and call it “Patina”

 

[bird_dog0347]

Just clear coat over it and call it “Patina”

That's still a few thousand in clear!

 

[limp]

Been reading some stories on another site about DIY painting....
some good stories about buying one of the blow up paint booths, building a frame work out of wood or plastic pipe than wrapping it in plastic..... Some box fans at one end and some furnace filters at the other....
youtube has some good videos...... Some people are pretty creative ....

 

[bird_dog0347]

Been reading some stories on another site about DIY painting....
some good stories about buying one of the blow up paint booths, building a frame work out of wood or plastic pipe than wrapping it in plastic..... Some box fans at one end and some furnace filters at the other....
youtube has some good videos...... Some people are pretty creative ....

I painted a few motorcycles in my dad's barn using plastic sheeting as "walls" and box fans, the paint jobs turned out awesome! It's all in the prep work and painting isn't that hard if you're patient.

 

[Monkeybutt2000]

When I was stationed at Hurlburt Field,FL, a buddy of mine was going to paint a co-workers car. I went along and helped mask off/prep everything. He started shooting the car and was getting runs,etc. He couldn't really get to the roof cuz he was short. I took over and ended up finishing the car,never sprayed anything before except out of a paint can. Then I painted one of the admin girls Subaru XT,and when she drove that to work,BOOM. I was swamped. Now,our base had a paint booth that was like $25 day,huge help obviously. Does your current base have a paint booth?

 

[RaggedGT]

That's still a few thousand in clear!

The Ole’ Nictator is gonna have to mingle with the common folk every once in awhile

Just kidding buddy

 

[FastDriver]

When I was stationed at Hurlburt Field,FL, a buddy of mine was going to paint a co-workers car. I went along and helped mask off/prep everything. He started shooting the car and was getting runs,etc. He couldn't really get to the roof cuz he was short. I took over and ended up finishing the car,never sprayed anything before except out of a paint can. Then I painted one of the admin girls Subaru XT,and when she drove that to work,BOOM. I was swamped. Now,our base had a paint booth that was like $25 day,huge help obviously. Does your current base have a paint booth?

First of all, did we do this already: I lived there while my mother was stationed at Eglin from '90-'00. So, maybe wevemet in passing.

Second, cool idea. I'll take a look around Fort Bragg (happy the name is back). Thanks for the idea!

 

[FastDriver]

The patina paint jobs remind me of the blue jeans that come already torn up. Not for me, but I'll get there on my own without any effort eventually.

 

[bird_dog0347]

The Ole’ Nictator is gonna have to mingle with the common folk every once in awhile

Just kidding buddy

 

[Monkeybutt2000]

First of all, did we do this already: I lived there while my mother was stationed at Eglin from '90-'00. So, maybe wevemet in passing.

Second, cool idea. I'll take a look around Fort Bragg (happy the name is back). Thanks for the idea!

That's crazy, I was with the 16th SOS from 90-93. I'm sure Bragg has a great base auto shop.

 

[FastDriver]

My best friend's, at the time, father, named Ford Moore was a tech on AC-130s, there during that period. Not sure if the same unit. I wonder if you might recognize the name. Figuring that's a small community.

 

[KRUISR]

GPT needs to get a price update on paint, $3-5K won't cover all the materials for a good paint job, let alone the labor.

So what is the definition of "a good paint job"? Just trying to understand others point of view.

 

[bird_dog0347]

So what is the definition of "a good paint job"? Just trying to understand others point of view.

Quality paint materials, perfect prep work, cut and buff after is normal but the less sanding the better as that equals less hours and less clear removed after being sprayed. The flatter it lays down out of the gun, the less you have to remove and buff back.

All that said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you think it's a good paint job, it is. If you want to see how closely your perception aligns with the marketplace, post it for sale and let others pick it apart. That is the basics of the free market, where it's only worth what someone will pay, and it's only as good as someone believes it is and is willing to put their money where their mouth is.

From my perspective, I've seen cars that I might not love the color of, but I say "holy eff, THAT is a nice paint job", and it is hard to say why exactly that is in one sentence as there are a ton of factors that go into the outcome. Go to a car show and look closely at the paint, some will pop more than others, some will look like they are a mile deep in clear coat. But just like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "I know it when I see it".

 

[General karthief]

I judge a paint job by its age, if it looks good after a couple years, bubbles and bad prep takes a while to show up.
Last car I had painted looked beautiful but after a couple years started showing the poor prep, the used door we used was showing rust underneath and paint chipped between the bumper cover and the fender, beautiful paint, poor prep.

 

[Monkeybutt2000]

My best friend's, at the time, father, named Ford Moore was a tech on AC-130s, there during that period. Not sure if the same unit. I wonder if you might recognize the name. Figuring that's a small community.

If he was aircraft maintenance,probably not as there were a bunch of those guys. I worked directly with the flyboys,as I took care of all their flight gear.

 

[FastDriver]

Good and bad news:

Good: Looks like the sellers are going to accept my offer on the house I've rented for a couple years.
Bad: I can still do small things, and things I already have parts for, but big projects/expenses on the stangs are likely done for the next 4-5 years.

So, I guess things'll slow down for Black Jack, now. I'm hitting pause on the "winter build". I have a complete top-end on the shelf waiting for this car, and a great lead on a mexican block, but I'm leaning towards building Black Jack's motor in 5 or so years. Paint for this car is also something I'm waffling on. I don't want to cost myself more if it leads to corrosion, but I want to use funds of that magnitude on the house at least until I transition to the civilian side and secure a good-paying job.

Still, I already have a few things I can do, like the AFM power pipe, more tuning and tweaking on the Moates QH with the nitrous. Getting Father Time back also gave Black Jack some hand-me-downs, like the GT steering wheel & a beat up 2-2.5" Kaenen cowl hood.

Even as beat up as it is, I still think it's an improvement over the stocker that also needed paint. It's definitely lighter. Need to see if I can peel off the 'Twin Turbo' lettering, but I have a feeling it'll still look lettered with either darker or torn paint underneath.

The wheel got a bit scuffed up, even if it maybe doesn't look as nice, it feels better than the LX wheel. Anything I should apply to darken the scuffs?

Swapping the top-end out is in the cards, but putting those pricey parts on a fresh shortblock is probably smarter.

 

[bird_dog0347]

Congrats on the house deal!