In 1964 my Mom gave me a 52 Chevy four door sedan. I was in the Army and on my way to Ft Benning. I took it to the E.S. at Valley and San Gabriel Blvd. They painted it "Diamond Gloss" red. At one time they charged $19.95 for a paint job. But by then it was up a bit I think. When we went to Viet Nam a year later I sold it to a Sergeant for his wife to use. While we were gone she traded it for a poodle dog. It was actually a very good looking paint job by the standards of the day.
Alright...here's Mom's Comet ("the Vomit", she called it) with her $14.95 paint job, 1970 Valentine's Day Special.
A friend of mine who owned a body shop for years, raised his two sons working the trade. A few years after he got out of the business one of his sons found himself laid off and desperately job hunting. He went to Earl Scheib's and they gave him a tape test to see if he was any good at taping. He taped everything perfectly and carefully just as he always did. He didn't get the job. The reason was because he was too thorough and took too long. They got a free mask job, and he was still looking for a job. lol
Back around 1970, one of the guys I knew (in Lubbock, Texas) managed an Earl Schieb paint shop. Had another buddy that needed a car painted and he did all of the prep work and let the car sit until the manager called him and told him to finish it up and bring it in. It seems the shop ran through a painter a week and when one showed up that really knew what he was doing the car got painted. Turned out real nice too. Larry T
We'll paint any car , any color only $29.95 . Don't want your windows painted ? Roll your windows down .
I worked there too. It was actually $19.95 before I started. Anyway, surprising results were not uncommon given what we had to deal with. As a sander, I got 2 full pieces of 220(?), and 30 minutes, and the masker got 40 minutes. WOW
I actually was going to apply for a store manager job at an Earl Sheib recently.... There was an ice cream truck, a van, a suburban and a dump truck all finished out front and all looked like total shit, like embarrassingly bad... I don't think I could try to do a paint job that bad and he prep work was awful... It's funny because the same store did a friends truck 10 years ago and it came out great! It must have been a change in management... The shop was also in the ghetto and looked like a dump.. No thanks! Eric
When I was a kid he was 19.95 Didn't mask crap and they made their own paint back then. I actually had a couple decent jobs done by giving the sprayman $10 cash. He would see to it that the prep and masking were ok. Ah, and then the Diamond Gloss era!
I got a car done by Scheib back in the 80's..i think for $99.99 Like others have said,do as much of the prep work yourself.I went as far as taking out all the windows too.I'm not sure if this still works,but i brought my car down at the end of the day.They spent some extra time before going home for the night working on my car.When they got there the next morning,my car was first to be sprayed..i also gave the painter an 1/8th of the greens before i left,which didn't hurt i'm sure.When i came back the car looked so good i gave him another....
Back in the '50's we lived in Hammond, Indiana, and my dad worked at the refineries in Gary. Pollution was just terrible from the steel mills and refineries, so no one's paint lasted more than a couple years. The Earl did a land-office business there. My old man took his '53 Olds 88 to their shop for a fresh coat, and on the way there we stopped at a liquor store. He came out with a 5th of whisky. I asked what that was for, he said it was common knowledge that if you didn't put a 5th under the seat, they wouldn't even wash the car before painting... not that the job looked for shit anyway, and they sprayed right over the "world" emblem on the hood.
i was wondering about this too, glad someone asked. looks like from the responses, it's hit or miss. looks like i need to go to my local E S and take a look at the cars they're pumping out. i need a "decent" paint job, can't afford to do it right kinda thing. i think mr sheib is gonna be my ticket..
I had a Sunbeam Alpine that I bought to resell. Did all the body work took it to E.S., told them "NOT TO PAINT THE WHEELS" as I knew that they sprayed them without masking the tires... Guess what, they sprayed the tires and wheels and painted the tires with black paint. Looked like shit... I was mad and never did that again. Did a truck at MAACO once, was better but not that good either. Find a small shop .....
I don't know if you're joking or if this is true, either way I can't stop laughing. There was a top ten list on the Letterman show one nite. I think it was themed "the top ten things great about America" or something to that effect. One of the ten was "You still can get your car painted for $29.95!"
When I was in Jr High school, I'd walk past this faded green 55 olds on my way to school. One day, it was painted a cream color and had an earl schieb sticker on the window...aside from overspray on the tires it didn't look too bad but after 2-3 months, the paint began falling off in huge chunks! Wasn't too long before almost all the cream paint was gone.....they shouldn't have put their sticker on the car....it was terrible.
I have been told that 50% of a good paint job is in the prep work, 15% in the buff out, 25% in the actual application of the paint and 10% to the weather. Now you can't do anything about the weather or the application of the paint but the other 65% of the process you control. Assuming you do your end of the work you have more than a 2 out of 3 chance of getting a good paint job. Those ain't bad odds.
Steve, Got anymore picts? I remember seeing this before the paint. It looked pretty rough. I assume you did all the prep work yourself?
if you do all the body work, prep work and taping, the tack cloth it in schiebs parking lot when you drop it off it'll come out pretty nice
In 1947 my brother ran his own paint ship! $15 for a paint job. washed the car with paint thinner and shot it with surplus paint without sanding. Used car dealers loved to have him paint the cars. LOL traderjack
Had an old 77 GMC Jimmy done in the mid 80's. Great paint for a mudder. I'd do it again if I had a location nearby.
I was an assistent manager for CarCoa Paint + Body several years ago. Same as E.S. We painted my 240Z there, I never waxed it and the damn thing still has a shine to it. This is when I was 18 and I'm 43 now. You do the math, I'll just start crying. As stated before, if you remove all the chrome, trim, bumpers and anthing else that they can paint over and do some prep work yourself it should be fine. That damn synthetic paint is just hard to kill.
i did my "j" about 6 years ago. it has never been garaged and has gone threw just about every kind of weather imagineable. the paint still shines and i'ved never polished it or waxed it in all those years. they had three kinds of paint jobs at that time, one was a 1 stage paint with the clear mixed in the paint for $299, one was a 2 stage for $399 and one was $499 if i remember right. i got the 1 stage on sale for $200. also, i never color sanded or buffed it out either. all i do is wash it and dry it and it looks just like it did when they painted it. nobody believes me when i tell them where it was painted. this is how i took it to them. this is how it looked after i finished it. i wouldn't hesitate to do it again. just take them a bare shell with roller tires and say thank you in spanish.
hard to go wrong if you did everything but shoot on the color. nothing like a premium synthetic enamel job with no fucking hardner in it! if anything went wrong what a mess took a month for that shit to dry if it dried. learned quickly pay the extra 5 bucks for hardner and stick with solid colors. in 1977 it was $37
I got a 49 cadillac painted by them for $29.95 in 1970. In 1972 I got a VW done for 19.95.I did all the prep and the Vdub turned out great. Like they say,its the prep that's important.The paint ,like chrome is only a reflection of whats under it.
Ahhh...The Earl of Scheib! In the early 80's my Brother had his (red) 64 Falcon painted there; white, but it came out dull pink!!!. Their shop was across the street from where he worked. One weekend we prepped the car, taking off the bumpers, grille, lights, etc and wet block sanding the body. it looked pretty straight. The side trim on the Falcon was a bitch to get off, so we left it on for them to mask (first mistake). He drove it to work Monday am and dropped it off at Earl's. He intended to go red over the existing faded red paint. The painter leveled with him telling him that their red paint would be oxidized like crazy within months and for a driver it wasn't worth the hassle. By Bro decides white will be the color (second mistake). I stop by his work that afternoon and we walk over to the shop. I see an off white Falcon in the lot, but not a red one. By Bro says "that color looks strange". I say, "you went with gray instead of red"? The Falcon looks good and shiny from a distance, but it's a grayish pink color rather than white (white shot over red w/o any primer/sealer!!!). As we get closer we discover they over masked the side trim all the way down the car and it now has a red stripe (the original paint) under the side trim. I start to laugh; "hey, it looks like the American Graffiti 58"! We open a door and the freshly upholstered interior done in black (black seats, dash, carpets) is gray. I reach down and lift a floor mat; black crpet underneath, grey everywhere else. They shot the red jambs white ($10 extra) but didn't paper off the interior! We raise holy friggin hell with the manager (she was a Gal, who must have just moved there from a retail store and seemed like a fish out of water)and they agree to keep the car an extra day. They reshot the car and cleaned the overspray from the interior and it came out decent.
Back in the late 60's my friends father had MAACO paint a 54 Ranch Wagon. The paint didn't look too bad, but you could see the outline of the umbrella he had left on the back seat from the over spray when they jammed the doors.
I had a cr painted by them in the 60's. Within one year it flaked off like an egg shell. These places are franchised so you never know how much experience the guy painting has. If you like overspray everywhere, they're the place to go.
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