$7000 paint job

I did my own car, but I knew what I was getting into after about 3 weeks of just doing nothing but cut out rust.
That's when I decided to get back into painting after sending 2 of the last 5 cars out for paint and watching just "paint creep up to over 5k and that was after 4 or more blockings just to get laser straight panels. After dusting off my skills as a painter. Bah! that didn't take long seeing that it was 15 years out of date and completely useless.

Mine cost me about 1600 for materials (yeah the basecoat was cheaper nason stuff but I was doing a complete so color match was not needed.) primer and sealer were top quality, but I could not justify $400+ gallon just for a topend dupont or Glasurite solid basecoat. Now the clearcoat was EXPENSIVE and well worth it. that was my UV protection to help save the paint form major sun damage here in Florida. prep was the most labor intensive and that damn blocking just about wore my shoulders right out. (2 aleve & 4 ibprofen per 12 hours the doc told me to do saved my bacon) But it did save me $$$ I took mine on it's body cart to a shop to finish my brake line bending after paint and before cutting/buffing it and they were amazed that it only cost me $16,000 in materials to get a pretty nice job. Is the paint perfect? Nope not to me, but they only found 1 slight run in the hood corner (damn sneezes get me every time) and 2 little imperfections in the bottom trunk lip area. can they be fixed? Yep will I? maybe. I want to drive it first and then think about making it super pretty.

if I figure my hours on the sanding/blocking and general prep I might have another 5-6 k in the car going @ 23.00 per hour. BUT if I was a pro the hours could/should have been less than 1/2 of the time I took on the car. so 2-3k tops. that gives me a at most a 4600 paint job. (my mistakes were included in the hours AND materials, take them out and the cost goes down by 200 in material and 30 hours of trying to remove a curve in the rear quarters that are SUPPOSED to be there:banghead: AND another 10 or so hours to put it back IN!) I didn't catch my mistakes until I looked at a lot of other darts and realizing the curve WAS supposed to be there.DUH!

The cost of newer equipment was for me considerable, since my newest gun was a Binks #7. But that was tool costs and I never figure in a usable tool on other projects unless I have to.
So a new Devilbiss plus gun with 1.2,1.4,1.7 & 2.0 tips, finishline gun for primer with 1.7, 2.0 and 2.2 tips new air drier and other sundry supplies happened. Did I need to pay that much($750.00)? nope but I darn sure could have paid more, one of the iwata 400 guns I got to test at a body shop was in the 500-600 range just by itself and I wanted it sooooooo badly but with my skill level I decided that just wasn't available to me (yet) man did it lay down paint smoooooooooooooth and that was with ME doing it! When I do another show car for my friend I'll make him spring for that gun and show him what a super nice gun can do even at my skill level!


Oh and to the grammar police, it is a "car forum" not an "english forum". I had no problems reading it (the original poster's post) and understanding it. Heck he even made paragraph's,which I tend NOT to do a lot. Was it (and my post ) grammatically correct? nope. But I did stay at a holiday inn express though, you have a Merry Christmas.