your first..worst...and best.....uh..paint job

R

ryan1

My first was a chevy cavalier my friend had( he was and still is one of those guys that thinks everything should take one day)
We went to the local napa and got some black single stage nason?or martin senior ? And got to work. At this point in time i did have some paint experience ( laquer cabinets that i helped my dad with when i was 13) i was now 15 and feeling confident with my dads binks 2001 .we sanded down the car and masked it off and rolled it out under the tree and started spraying. It was black and it actually was ok looking,definitely better than burgandy.

Worst and best are the same one...when i turned 20 i worked at northrop on the B-2 PAINT. I worked second shift and was constantly getting in trouble for doing to much. I was told that thing take a certain amount of time and if i got done to fast it was wrong. So i painted cars on the side and went to work to sleep. This time i painted. 87? Honda accord the body had very minor damage with very little repair. I used dupont chroma and dupont clear. Everything came out beautiful i couldnt believe how nice it was. I called the owner and told her she can come see her car before i went to work. I rolled the car outside and here's where things went wrong ( the guy that tought me alot about painting told me he would let the car sit out and then once it wasn't sticky anymore he would lightly hose it off) worst advice ever ...i wet it down and it looked like knock down texture! After i was done throwing up, i called the owner and told her i wanted to fix a couple things. Then spent three days re doing everything. Sometimes it's best to leave it the hell alone.
 
First? 14 years old 74 vw bug. I was hooked! worst? 78 toyota truck.... don't ask! Best? 69 GTO Judge Convertible (Clone) 2nd place best of show Chicago World of Wheels 1998 But honestly the BEST? is yet to come!
 
First? 68 Mustang Candy Apple Red Enamel. Worst? 71 F150 pickup Dark Blue Metallic compressor was spitting oil. Best? I am still working on that.
 
First was brush job - a 1955 Plymouth Belvedere 4-door that I paid too much for ($20). Covered the aqua with black Red Devil enamel (left the white alone). When the car was running, it looked pretty good (through the cloud of blue smoke). Never put more than 5 gallons of gas in it because it used almost 2 quarts of oil with that amount of fuel.

Worst was a silver euro-spec 1979 BMW 733i. Looked great for two weeks, when the clear started to bubble. Did so many things wrong it's hard to describe the mess.

Best, working alone, was a metallic green 1971 Vega GT sprayed with enamel in the garage. Best assist was a black 1959 Corvette sprayed with lacquer in friend's garage -- first in class, Miami World of Wheels.

Currently preparing a new best (or worst) black 1972 Corvette (all SPI -- now that SPI black is back).
 
First, 15 years old 68 Chevy C10 in brown, probably the worst also with to many bugs! Past best, 83 CJ7 in 2 gallons of Ureglo gloss black inside and out.
Present best yet to come lol
 
Worst ever, I had just shot a 72 Mark-4 all over with Centari it was a black and not a spec of orange peel and there was no need to even buff.
Cleaned my gun and I heard a boom the new state of art filter system blew and damaged door but sprayed desiccant all over the job.
That was about 1978 or close to.
It was the biggest mess you ever saw.
 
First 1965 F-100 I just turned 18 and was getting my feet wet.. It was urethnae single stage from Martin Senior.. Shot it outside the garage and was clean with minimal peel..
Worst was a 2001 sport trac.. New gun, new clear and I covered it in 23+ runs :mad: and sags.. Only to sand it all down and do it all over again with probably 15 runs and sags this time :mad: .. Sold the gun and got out my old trusty gun and re cleared a third time.. Only a couple runs :p but the truck had waay too much clear on it by now and shrank and looked like hell after the cut and buff next summer..
Luckily the truck was my wifes, but she has never let me live that terrible paint job down.. Occasionally she will remind me when we are in an argument or something that I couldnt paint worth a shit on that particular job.. Oh the memories ha ha!!

The best was 6 years ago.. I was in a dark place and focused all my energy, anger and sadness in a 70 Mach 1.. The owner has a room full of trophys and the car was featured somewhere in something lol.. Shows you how much that stuff means to me.. All spi minus the base that was Pro SPray..

I plan on topping that car if I ever get to shoot it..1969 Camaro SS.. Customer has had a time finding someone to put in all new wiring, vintage air, engine work etc etc etc.. When that is all complete, it will come back here and I will shoot it.. It is all spi except for Evercoat polyester primer and Jet Black Pro Spray single stage.. It will be topped with spi clear also... Its gonna be slick :cool:... I hope ;-)
 
My best ever seem to be the ones I never really go into thinking this has to be a jam up perfect job. Case in point, I've painted a few F650 tree service trucks both SPI Red and Viper Red for my neighbor. All the trucks were painted outside in his gravel parking lot using an inadequate air compressor, masked with newspaper, taped with blue house painting tape (his guys were in charge of tape and prep) and his Tonka Toy paint guns. Everyone of those jobs turned out fantastic with little to no trash. It just seems to me the harder you try, the more likely you are going to make a mistake.
 
I am with Andy K on this one When I grab the gun with no care in the world is when I have the best success!
 
its seems the more i clean for dust the more dust i get on the paint. Then the more trash and dust laying around sont clean up, blow and go it, turns out killer...just dont get it...but now i clean up after i paint instead of before! LOL
 
first grandpa's aluminum fishing boat at 16. Also one of my worst. Painted it with centari ss and of course grandpa picked out a retina searing signal green, and I swear all those hangers I put in it glowed a mile away. Another, probably a Probe at a rebuilder I worked at in the mid 90's where we had a little freedom. Decided to paint graphics on it similar to a mustang in hot rod. Looked pretty good on the mustang, but looked like crap on the probe. Purple and blue with red stripe. Boss had trouble selling it. Of course some kid with all sorts of gaudy stuff in his car was about the only one who liked it.
My brothers ex wifes car wasn't the best till I repainted it. Had a heck of a time trying to get the cheap omni base I bought, in the green metallic color, to go on even. And to add to it, Giant moth found its way right smack in the middle of the hood in second coat of clear, made a hell of a mess. Bought new spray gun for base, repainted and second time turned out okay.
But can't remember having any catastophic failures that a little painting wouldn't fix. Have seen enough others mix wrong or forget to add hardener and have the paint not harden, or whole paint job blow up from some wierd reaction. Never had that happen.

Best nothing really stands out as being the best. My moms pontiac 6000 I painted in the tech schools booth turned out pretty dang nice, specially considering it was Centari ss in a dark metallic blue (added what they termed back then is ultra performance pack, probably just hardener and reducers, but I remember you added a part a and a part b along with the paint. She totalled it months later, and messed herself up pretty bad, jaws of life to get her out, she still hobbles a bit from that accident to this day (21 years later). Still has pictures of it in the salvage yard, shiney new paint job, every panel smashed. Haven't painted a ton, and thats not the only thing I painted that was totalled within a short time. Like others hope the best is yet to come, but haven't painted full time for years.

How about most interesting.
Fresh out of body school, get a call from a friend, asking if I could help do bodywork and paint a car. Get over there, tent set up in backyard, cords running to it, and small 3 hp compressor and an older lincoln stretched to a limo inside. Me and couple others sling some mud, sand, and lacquer prime that day. Wanted to paint the next day, but he really wanted it painted yet that day. So start laying white delstar, sun already starting to set and losing light fast. When I finally get a moment from running around the car to look up, and notice I have a big audience forming watching the show go on, with drinks in hand. Turns out they were throwing a party that night, they didn't clue me in on. Looked pretty sweet that night in the dark (before I had a drink too). Looked okay the next morning, lol
Another interesting one. Painted a black probe gt same used car dealer. Stayed late finishing up buffing again with an audience, bosses buddies watching. After lot of hard work buffing and washing, looked good, ready for the lot. Come in the next day, and now the car is scratched all to heck, and stains on it. Turns out bosses buddy picks up some girl at the bar, and boss didn't want to give him the key to his house, so gave him the key to the shop. They just had to pick the cleanest shinest car in the shop. Boss tells me to rebuff it, I say no way, I am not touching that f'n car with a 10 foot pole. LOL. Funny how many of the interesting things in Wisconsin often involve alcohol.
 
i know this is an old thread but i thought i might chime in. dad had a shop when i was a teenager. first my own Beetle dulux hugger orange turned out good. worst. brand new 86 Chevy full size warranty (working for dealer), peeler, i used some new sherwin williams "ultra" single stage, terrible peel and runs, was not the centari i was used to. i sanded buffed and then sanded and re-shot whole truck. BEST was brother in laws 87 cutlass he stripped all the old lacquer off. was a quickie. first time i used a da before buffing. beautiful gunmetal grey.
 
First was a '73 Blazer when I was 19 back in '84. Turned out ok, but had a dull finish to it. It was single stage enamel of some kind that was popular back then.

Worst was my son's WRX a couple years ago with a silver. I pushed the cure times and cleared it too soon. Something was goofy with my gun and had a bunch of runs in the clear, but the runs actually pulled the base coat so I had dark runs that couldn't be sanded out. Had to sand out all the runs, scuff and shoot base and clear all over again.

Best was probably the Cobra I just finished. Atomic orange with ghost stripes, came out really good.
 
Since there seems to be a lot of VWs mentioned here, this perhaps was not my worse but the funniest.

Must have been 78 or 79 era I was a painter for a real high end shop, the owner married and about 45 has a 22 year old on the side, they were breaking up and he was trying to keep her shut up. she had a mid 70's 5 or 6 bright green metallic VW convert that she was going to sell. So come in one morning and this thing is setting in my work area, he said, slap filler where needed don't sand the car. just paint it real pretty as she is going to sell as soon as done. All i said was you sure about that and he advised me it was not a concern of mine.
He paid for a glasuit paint and I slammed it that day to make my $150 and it looked great, way better then new.
She went bye bye and it was about six months latter, i see this thing pull up in parking lot, paint coming off in sheets, she leaves the car and the idiot owner comes back and says you have your first comeback, the car looked so good, she decided to keep it.
 
My first paint job was a black 1962 Galaxie. I took it to a show and got a 2nd place trophy. Wait a minute that was a model. My first real paint job was a late 60's or early 70's Chevy pick up I painted red lacquer and did not have to buff. I worked for my dad at his used car lot when I wasn't racing Super Stock with my Mustang. The gas crunch came along in 1975 and to save money I started painting our vehicles. I watched as my race car was being painted in 1971 and said I can do that so I sprayed that Chevy truck. I guess my best paint would have to be when I restored my Super Stock Mustang in 2005 as it looked back in 1971. I believe this was the first time I used SPI clear and have never used anything else since. I don't think I have had a worst paint job at least one that I can think of.
 
Barry;36755 said:
Since there seems to be a lot of VWs mentioned here, this perhaps was not my worse but the funniest.

Must have been 78 or 79 era I was a painter for a real high end shop, the owner married and about 45 has a 22 year old on the side, they were breaking up and he was trying to keep her shut up. she had a mid 70's 5 or 6 bright green metallic VW convert that she was going to sell. So come in one morning and this thing is setting in my work area, he said, slap filler where needed don't sand the car. just paint it real pretty as she is going to sell as soon as done. All i said was you sure about that and he advised me it was not a concern of mine.
He paid for a glasuit paint and I slammed it that day to make my $150 and it looked great, way better then new.
She went bye bye and it was about six months latter, i see this thing pull up in parking lot, paint coming off in sheets, she leaves the car and the idiot owner comes back and says you have your first comeback, the car looked so good, she decided to keep it.
Click to expand...
That kind of stuff is part of the reason I can't work under anyone doing body and paint anymore. They'll always rush you into doing things wrong, and of course blame you even when you warned them...
 
Kinda a strained relationship with me and owner, he was rich boy daddy bought business for, could not change a fuse with a 20 page instruction manual.
We did warranty work for Mercedes, Lambo, Ferrari and Alfa, so he was kinda stuck with me but hated my attitude.

I told him you come in on weekend and get this thing stripped and ready and I will spray it for you if you buy me lunch.
this guy never had been dirty before and asked what I would charge, I said the same money I get for doing a Mercedes SL450, $2500. He had a fit but agreed.
Then I told him, next time you need your rocks off, may be further ahead and cheaper to hire a hooker. Not sure why he didn't like me? LOL
 
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