Re: Sanding Car ready for Paint

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2010/12/31 11:51:05

You really have to decide what you want when you're finished, what the value of the car might be (if that's important to you) and how much you want to spend. I understand things may be very different on your side of the pond, but maybe this will help you crystallize your thoughts.

Some extemely rare and valuable cars done for the likes of Pebble are still done in nitrocellulose lacquer, think in thems of $35,000 or more done by an extremely skillful restoration shop and an owner aiming for a Pebble or Amelia winner. For non-metallics, single stage urethane again done by a very skillful shop might be half that amount and can be quite outstanding, competitive in all but perhaps the highest circles of judging. For metallics, base coat/clear coat can produce outstanding results though they bear no semblance to OEM paint jobs unless the hot-rod gloss is knocked back a bit. With little or no body work required, I've seen some base coat/clear coat jobs done by the better of regular body shops in the range of $6000 that are VERY nice and could easily be "best of show" at local car shows. The low-tier paint franchised paint shops like MAACO here can produce a decent job in enamel for $500 and up which would be fine for a presentable driver, though you'll have very little choice in colors. For this price you remove all the trim, do whatever masking is needed, and of course body work is your problem. This kind of job is what we used to call "a spritz".

So there you go, $500 to $35,000 - what kind of finished product do you want?