Number of days to prep for paint ?

[Turbo67camaro]

Once a car is fully metal prepared, is extremely straight (mostly new panels with at most a couple of dings on the entire car), and is completely disassembled, how many man days of work does it take to smooth the seams, primer, sand, and seal to be ready to spray with paint (for a 1st gen Camaro)?

Scope/quality: exterior, interior (mostly the dash), engine compartment. Not included: inside of trunk, floors, underneath, and inside of panels because they have been coated with a product similar to Rhino lining. Quality: not necessarily show quality, but not far from it either. Car will be painted white with some red stripes.

[Bow Tie 67]

Give yourself a full week if working by yourself

[oestek]

That's a pretty subjective question, and it depends on your approach. Have all the panels been fit together 100% before disassembly? We like to assemble the car and do all the filler work with the car assembled, gaps set, etc., to ensure the body lines run true. Are you planning on skimming the whole car and blocking it down, then priming, blocking, sealing, disassemble, paint jams, reassemble, paint car?

A week of 10 hour days will go by very quickly. If it's just you, I'd set aside a month. It's always better to aim longer than shorter.

[63SW]

IT TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES --DONT RUSH !

The finished product will show the time you put into it.
If your doing it yourself and not on a deadline , work until your satisfied and then have someone else look it over too.
After working on a car for a week to a month straight , You could miss something here and there .

oestek is right , Aim longer and get a better finished product!

[Turbo67camaro]

Panels have all been fitted and gaps line up very well.

This is in the context of a professional shop, not myself.

How long to prime, sand, seal is all I was looking for. Other than some seams and a couple dings, there is virtually no filler work needed.

[oestek]

I guess for a pro shop, as long as the $ is rollin' they should be working. This will depend on how many guys they have working on it, and if there are any other more profitable jobs ahead of you. I know I'm kinda dancing around the actual physical work time, but that usually takes a back seat to other factors. Could be as quick as 100 hours with a straight car and quick workers. Are you planning to take it somewhere, or trying to find out why it's taking so long?

[Turbo67camaro]

I've been paying this shop per hour on all the metal work and suspension, but I'm considering switching to a fixed bid on the rest of the work.

They do very good work, but things tend to cost a lot more than they tell me they will. It is a real pain in the a$$ when trying to stick to a budget and make decisions like upgrade a part or not. For example, I know now that $3,500 for a good prep and paint job is not realistic as I was told, but how much should I budget ? What other things am I going to remove from the project now as a result ? I suspect now that good materials are ~$1,500, they're now telling me 8 to 10 days of prep work($3,840 to $4,800), and they haven't yet told me how much labor for the actual painting. So, by the time painting labor is added, we'll be over double the initial estimate. There's no excuse to be off that much on an estimate for a really straight car.

So, I'm trying to break it down to steps, add up the subtotals, come to a reasonable figure, and then tell them to do a fixed bid on the work for said reasonable figure. Especially since the owner said one of his new body/paint workers does really good work, but started out real slow, and he needed to light a fire under his arse.

It sounds like the 8 to 10 days of prep work is not out of line for a very straight car. The really irritating part is that I wasn't told that upfront.

Now, once I get a subtotal for painting labor by first painting the mating surfaces, assembling the car, potentially readjusting the gaps, and then painting the remainder, I should be able to get a reasonable total estimate.

Thanks

[Motown 454]

The guy who is doing my paint told me just to do the first primer over the etching primer was going to be $900 .Thats with no body work just so I can mock up drivetrain. He showed me price for materials .
Wayne

[David Sloan]

IT TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES --DONT RUSH !

The finished product will show the time you put into it.
If your doing it yourself and not on a deadline , work until your satisfied and then have someone else look it over too.
After working on a car for a week to a month straight , You could miss something here and there .

oestek is right , Aim longer and get a better finished product!

I couldnt have said it better!
Thanks

[MuscleRodz]

Actual paint time is 10% of the time, 90% is in the prep.

[Turbo67camaro]

We settled on 7K for the prep and paint job.

Granted, one can spend more than that to get a mind blowing paint job with exotic paints, but at that point I'd be afraid to park it in a parking lot.

A very straight car, plus my color and paint choices should, be one where the shop can make a decent buck, and the quality should be there as well.

[MrQuick]

Thats a decent price. Do yourself a big favor and inspect the car carefully before paint is applied, before the clear goes on and don't pay all the cash up front. Also get a signed written estimate of total cost so you don't hear the old "we need another grand to finish the job" spiel.