Paint opinions, what would you guys do here?

[281pony]

my notch has some body work i need to get taken care of. i have some extra cash, and im contemplating getting it painted/repaired. i have a situation where a guy is just learning to paint. he has good equipment, a garage booth hes setting up. he seems pretty confident that when/if he touches my car, he will be able to do a solid job.

i have a good door ding, some small stuff, not a ton of body work. he wants to just sand the clear off the whole car, patch the body, then spray it. he wants $100 for his time and the experience he will gain from it.

my car is performance white, so i know its a pretty forgiving color to spray. any painters here? what would you do? i know you typically get what you pay for, but would this be an ok situation for a good paint job? he will have 1 full car smoothed/sanded and primered under his belt atleast before he primered/painted mine.

 

[Shaolin Crane]

So you're willing to ruin your car for the $100 dollar value? if thats the case go to Maico.

 

[ViperPunk]

that is a real iffy situation but the only way you will know is if you try it and if he jacks up then he can redo it again for another 100

 

[281pony]

this is all upon how the primered car turns out. he wont paint my car unless he feels confident. he can prep fine, i've seen that first hand. it's just a matter of spraying a white car, for your first car basically.

im thinking its a forgiving color and i can give someone a chance to get some experience. i can't afford 2k-3k for a shop to do it. the sub-1k mark though is doable though. just airing my thought out..

i wouldnt consider this if my car wasnt WHITE. they hide so much..

 

[ViperPunk]

i was gonna say that you should see how well he primers it but i dont blame you i wish i had that position i would tell him he could paint mine watever color he wanted at that price cuz here in idaho its 3k if you primer it and do all the body work yourself and just want the paint shot on lol

 

[Shaolin Crane]

the question is how confident are YOU with paint work, cause it may come down to you fixing it after he ****s up

 

[281pony]

the guy wants to start doing this as a means of business. he just spent $400 on professional detailing supplies and orbital.

i guess the only thing for me to do is wait and see how the primer comes out. the biggest thing im looking to gain here, is how forgiving white paint is from a painter? how much experience can really be learned from primering a full car/prepping it before doing it with paint?

just trying to pick a painters brain..

 

[IApony]

White is a fairly forgiving color as compared to black or any dark color, but if the prep work is not good then it really doesn't matter.

 

[WLDHRSE]

The quality of a paint job is 95% in the prep. If his prep work is good he will likely take the time to do the paint work properly. I made the same offer to a bunch of my friends when I was learning to paint. I was going to do it for free and couldn't get a single person to let me paint their stang. Of course after seeing my 93 GT done, they were all begging me to do it. Unfortunately for them, after doing it once and knowing all the work that actually goes into a good paint job, there was no way I was offering that again for free.

Just because dude hasn't done it yet doesn't mean he can't do it. I spent about 15 months researching and about $1500 on equipment to do my first car (and $2k on HOK paint). I think letting him do the primer will help see if he can set the gun properly, and if he is spraying fairly even. I made mistakes, most likely he will too. None of my mistakes were cause to reshoot the car. If the car needs paint now and he doesn't do a good job then you may still need the car painted, but what have you lost, a little time and someone will have to strip the paint. You might want to discuss with him who is going to strip the car if the paint job does turn out bad, and what you can live with.

If you are looking for show quality this is not likely the way to go, although your budget is not dictating that you will get show quality regardless of who is doing it.

One other thought, has he painted anything? He should be practicing on a hood first, then you could both get an idea if he can even handle a gun. Plus it's much quicker to strip a hood than an entire car.

 

[1987LXragtop]

Yeah if youre looking for show quality you need to see someone who has been doing it awhile. If you are looking to just redo a daily then maybe.
I repainted mine myself 3 months ago. First time I ever painted a car and I went dark. If I do it over again Ill go back to white. Its okay but yeah prep work is key and good finish work is too. I used 6 coats of clear and kinda did a rush job on the cut and buff. So I put in 5 hours this past saturday just to wet sand and rebuff the hood. Pretty happy. He may have good skills and you just dont know it yet but he should practice too. I did before hand and it helped to get the feel for it.

 

[25thmustang]

Personally, I would let him do it. I had two 17 year olds paint my car. They had done a lot of paint and body work in the past, but were still younger with less experience. I'm glad I did it this way. Not to mention, the first time something chips the paint on your $3000-4000 paint job, it will hurt way more than the first time something chips your $100 paint job.

 

[Shaolin Crane]

Personally, I would let him do it. I had two 17 year olds paint my car. They had done a lot of paint and body work in the past, but were still younger with less experience. I'm glad I did it this way. Not to mention, the first time something chips the paint on your $3000-4000 paint job, it will hurt way more than the first time something chips your $100 paint job.

isnt the paint falling off your front bumper?

 

[S&B]

i would go for it, if he thinks he can do it might as well try. You dont seem like a fool so you wouldn't even be concidering this if you didn't at least know the guy.

 

[25thmustang]

isnt the paint falling off your front bumper?

Yup, and the kids who painted it (although didn't do the final prep) will repaint that front bumper for me. I will say, had a paid a lot for paint the front bumper would **** me off, but having saved what I did, I live with it for now. That and I don't drive the car, lol.

 

[Makdaddymac]

The quality of a paint job is 95% in the prep. If his prep work is good he will likely take the time to do the paint work properly. I made the same offer to a bunch of my friends when I was learning to paint. I was going to do it for free and couldn't get a single person to let me paint their stang. Of course after seeing my 93 GT done, they were all begging me to do it. Unfortunately for them, after doing it once and knowing all the work that actually goes into a good paint job, there was no way I was offering that again for free.

Just because dude hasn't done it yet doesn't mean he can't do it. I spent about 15 months researching and about $1500 on equipment to do my first car (and $2k on HOK paint). I think letting him do the primer will help see if he can set the gun properly, and if he is spraying fairly even. I made mistakes, most likely he will too. None of my mistakes were cause to reshoot the car. If the car needs paint now and he doesn't do a good job then you may still need the car painted, but what have you lost, a little time and someone will have to strip the paint. You might want to discuss with him who is going to strip the car if the paint job does turn out bad, and what you can live with.

If you are looking for show quality this is not likely the way to go, although your budget is not dictating that you will get show quality regardless of who is doing it.

One other thought, has he painted anything? He should be practicing on a hood first, then you could both get an idea if he can even handle a gun. Plus it's much quicker to strip a hood than an entire car.

pure logic...have him do a hood, then judge from there,
but i say if the prep looks great and the hood is good for a 100.00 i say go for it....................

 

[281pony]

he wants to paint a car in full primer before he touches someone elses car. he is primering a full car today or tomorrow i guess. prep work he seems to do good with.

i am not after show quality, nor am i after crap. he has a friend who is a professional glass installer. he will be removing all trim pieces, ect. it seems like a good setup, i got some good feedback in here from painters.

im going to see how his stuff turns out in the next few days and he will tell me if he feels comfortable. we are basically planning a saturday/sunday to do the whole car from start to finish. then ill probably come back for final detailing or whatever the following week. 1 full day to do prep, 1 day for paint.

 

[Tyrant89]

he wants to paint a car in full primer before he touches someone elses car. he is primering a full car today or tomorrow i guess. prep work he seems to do good with.

i am not after show quality, nor am i after crap. he has a friend who is a professional glass installer. he will be removing all trim pieces, ect. it seems like a good setup, i got some good feedback in here from painters.

im going to see how his stuff turns out in the next few days and he will tell me if he feels comfortable. we are basically planning a saturday/sunday to do the whole car from start to finish. then ill probably come back for final detailing or whatever the following week. 1 full day to do prep, 1 day for paint.

It kinda sounds like you already made up yer mind here!

If your paint is pretty bad right now, go fer it. Can he really make it look WORSE than old & dinged up Fox?! (actually after carousing the local PHBH lots, I have seen some pretty scary jobs )

You know you wanna give the guy a chance, so go fer it. If he's a decent friend and the job don't turn out as well as planned, he should do you right next year after he gets some exp. under his belt.

Either way... lets see some nice before n after pics on a nice sunny day w/ a good camera!

~Shaun

 

[281pony]

i havent made up my mind actually. its just got a few things on the body i want to address. the big door ding, the chipping front bumper and where the fenders were rolled its chipping. all prior stuff to me owning it.

then me on the other hand wants to take this cash i have and just buy a blower if someone will go through with shipping it to me for once im gonna just decide from here on how the primer turns out i think.

 

[Mintsick]

If someone offered me a paint job for $100 I would jump on it personally especially if you can get a look at his prep work before pulling the trigger on your own car. Who knows it could very well be the best $100 you have ever spent on the car!

 

[bwguardian]

I read through all the post quickly and may have missed it...but is this a single stage or base coat clear coat paint job?