Advice Needed From Body Shop Experts

[Atari Boy 11]

My 89 205 needs to be re-sprayed, the bonnet has quite a few stone chips and the car generally has usual dinks here and there, the tailgate is in need of attention also.

 

The car is not worth a fortune, although mechanically is for now spot on even though it has done 155K and therefore does not warrant spending thousands on a professional re-spray.

 

What I am after is some advice from professional sprayers or from people that have had a go themselves.

Is it worth me trying to spray it myself? I dont use the car everyday and I have a big barn to use whilst I do it. A compressor and a spray gun should not be too expensive and I will have all the kit to keep afterwards. So it would not be a rush job.

 

As I see it the preparation is the major time killer and I dont mind taking my time.

 

Dont get me wrong, I am not say to the pros I can do that because I cant but I am willing to try and learn, am I being realist or just tight?

 

Thanks

 

Jonny

[welshpug 1,627]

Personally I would do as much of the prep as I could myself (i.e engine out, interior out, all glass and trim etc off, clean up any rust patches)

 

then pop it on a crappy set of steels and let a time served craftsman do his thing with the paint

[sonofsam 5]

My 89 205 needs to be re-sprayed, the bonnet has quite a few stone chips and the car generally has usual dinks here and there, the tailgate is in need of attention also.

 

The car is not worth a fortune, although mechanically is for now spot on even though it has done 155K and therefore does not warrant spending thousands on a professional re-spray.

 

What I am after is some advice from professional sprayers or from people that have had a go themselves.

Is it worth me trying to spray it myself? I dont use the car everyday and I have a big barn to use whilst I do it. A compressor and a spray gun should not be too expensive and I will have all the kit to keep afterwards. So it would not be a rush job.

 

As I see it the preparation is the major time killer and I dont mind taking my time.

 

Dont get me wrong, I am not say to the pros I can do that because I cant but I am willing to try and learn, am I being realist or just tight?

 

Thanks

 

Jonny

 

 

Im basically in the same position as you concerning the car, albeit without the nice big barn to do the spray work.

currently doing all the prep work myself and if I had a barn I would do the spray job myself. Have sprayed one car before and

gloss rollered another (yes gloss rollered!lol)

So no I dont think you are being unrealistic, because as the old saying goes : If you can p*ss, you can paint

If you got plenty of time to do it, then thats all the better IMO, you can always practice spraying on an old bonnet.

Just my opinion. I find spraying cars and airbrushing very therapeutic, and it's all good experience.

 

Good luck with it whatever you decide to do .

[jonnie205 1]

It can be done at home but remeber you will need breathing apparatus to spray 2 pack paint and there is lots of health and safety issues, you will also need a good spray gun and a big compressor to feed mask and gun. it can be time consuming to rub down primer etc but satisfying once its done

[boombang 2]

Depends how much you earn tbh.

 

If you're on good money and could spent that time working then sod it - pay someone else to do it and concentrate on work.

 

I personally love the prep and paint side (having done a bare shell myself) but looking back I'd have been much better off to pay someone to do it for me. Took my shell back to either the galvanised coat or back to bare metal where needed, and reckon prep of whole shell, welding and complete finishing of underside took around 100 hours to get it where I wanted. The priming and painting of shell another 20 hours to get to a stage where I am happy. If I'd worked those weekends, it'd easily have paid for itself but the thrill for me is in the building.

 

If I were to do it again, I'd make up a spit/stand for the car to enable putting it on its side - would cut that time by half easily.

 

Other thing to think about, is if a bodyshop will be as thorough as you! I can't imagine anywhere taking the time to go into such detail as I did in removing what could be easily sprayed over. Just as I was doing it, I wanted to do it to the very best it could be as I vowed only to do it like this once in any restoration type project (it'll happen again though, just not with a Pug).

 

Work out the costs, and I reckon 99% of the time it's worth paying for unless the shell is bad, then it could either cost fortunes or be a half-a-job.

[steve@cornwall 100]

Click sig. link for piccies of spraycan respray of cherry red gti! I think the original topic has now been pruned