I can't speak for everyone, but I fully realize that problems crop up in any paint job and that pefection is a myth. But the things I see are from professional shops drawing big bucks from customers and turning out sub-professional work. Ever see a late-model car that litterally had no paint on the bottom of the rockers because the painter didn't feel like bending over? There's a local pro-built, black Camaro that the shop simply bondo'd over the seam between the quarter panel and the panel above the trunk lid, and it split before the car ever made it out of the shop. Another local painter trowels on bondo over the door and fender on muscle cars, then blocks over it rather than get the door adjusted right to start with. He claims that's how it's supposed to be done. I don't know if any of you have ever seen the engine bay of a early Mustang, but it's full of overlapping sheetmetal. This guy wanted a smooth look for a customers Mustang, so what did he do? Piled on the filler, of course. When I saw the car, it had about 2 gallons of filler all over the car, from end to end, top to bottom, AND it had sat so long it started to rust under the filler. The painter/shop owner told me that once he put the epoxy primer over it, it would seal off the air and it wouldn't alllow the rust to spread. WTF did he get that idea? I'll be the first to admit there's no such thing as anything resembling perfect on anything I've ever built or even painted, **** happens, right? But wander into some of the shops that specialize in ****ing big dollars out of customers wallets and look at the the cars UNDER the paint and you'll get a shock. I'd like to see some of these cars ten years down the road...
Thats a different story entirely from what I was talking about. But its one that I just happened upon not long ago. I lived under the myth that a professional shop must be doing everything right or they wouldn't be a professional shop. Boy was I wrong. I was turned on to some sub-professional aspects of certain cars that I though couldn't be anything but perfect becasue of who they were built by.
There are so many show cars with shoddy body work. My dad bought a little yellow toyota truck o/t as hell i know. It was in the sacramento autorama and had a **** load of awards. 20 years down the road the paint is spiderwebbing like hell on the roof, I take the paint off and there is about inch think of bondo in some places and underneath that the roof has waves for days. On the drivers side rear panel there is a dent that i found under the bondo that is about 6 inches long and about 2 inches deep!!!!! Hows that for shoddy ****.
i've been doing body work for over 18yrs. so if your going show finish. do your body work block to 150 grit primer it, then let it sit for a bit. block it 220 grit put putty where needed and primer again. let sit again for a couple weeks for everything to cure/ shrink. 220/400 final block seal it then let it sit. scuff the sealer then shoot the paint. the thing is that most people can't do this cause of time. most start blocking the primer the next day and by next week in the booth. so after a couple of months it all starts to shrink.
I ***** left & right at car shows, but it's just an opinion. "Oh why'd he use those ugly wheels?" "Radials on an A!?!?! WTF?" "Look at the runs in the paint on this flagship car for this shop!" I keep my comments to myself or a****st my close friends. I wouldn't pick someones car apart in front of them unless they truly wanted my $.02, which honestly isn't worth a ****, considered I don't honestly give a damn. You gotta take into consideration who's at fault. The owner? The Builder? The Painter? Lots of things to consider on every level. Maybe the owner bought it, took it to a shop with a limited budget, got what he paid for? Maybe the builder didn't know what he was doing? Maybe the painter was rushed, overworked & underpaid? Maybe you're just a picky ***hole? Who knows? And who really gives a ****? Lots of maybes to consider. Better than seeing it rot in a field or collecting dust, spiders, rats nests, and bird**** in some old codgers barn anyday. Atleast give them that!
When I see people picking flaws on cars at a run or show, my first question is "where's yours?". I don't give much of a **** what excuse you have, even if your car is at the run, if it came on a trailer, you are still loud and little to me. Pucker up.
It is good to actually drive the car a bit before you splash the liquid on it. Flex things, get them hot in the sun and see if things crack or swell, or just don't look right in sunlight. Drive it with primer..........you may find it will get more attention than when you paint it. There is nothing like parking a rusty bomber next to a polished trailer queen and drawing a crowd around your garage creation. This is what makes the world turn.
you guys are grouping show cars with cars at cruise-ins and weekend "goodguys" type event.Showcars are in fact by their nature should be leaning towaards perfection,this is the idea behind ISCA shows,thus the points systems.......Ive judged a bunch of these shows and its scarie what is tryin to p*** as perfection...........however when ya find a nice one its breathtaking
My favorite misconception is corvettes. They had the ****piest paint jobs when new of any car. I had a 74 that I don't think they finished the bodywork before they painted it until I noticed all corvettes are that way. Then when working for Chevrolet in 79, we got in a new Corvette and the glued on emblem on the back of the car was obviously crooked. However, most of the vettes you see on Barrett and Top Flite cars are almost perfect. Not like they where when they where new. But then it would be hard to guess exactly when a particular car was moved to the paint booth before the body work was done.
Years ago my late friend and fellow car club member, Rich Prince, did a humorous fictional account of car critics at a local cruise spot. If you'd care to see it go to http://bernhardt.us/meadowlands/history/history.html then go to "member's cars and web pages", find Rich's story by clicking on his name.... enjoy. R.I.P. Rich
Yep, I can walk around any car or bike I've ever worked on and point out the flaws. I haven't run into a customer yet that wants to pay for perfection.
Maybe you're just a picky ***hole? Who knows? And who really gives a ****? Lots of maybes to consider. Better than seeing it rot in a field or collecting dust, spiders, rats nests, and bird**** in some old codgers barn anyday. Atleast give them that![/quote] i'm right there with ya' on this one bro!
I agree with you for the most part. I like to live under the rule that Only a true friend and HAMB members will tell you your car looks like **** <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o> Others will keep it to them selfs so you look like an ***hole
I'm with ya there. I've NEVER achieved perfection, and probably couldn't if I had that dream customer that would pay for it. But.... I sure felt good about MY work twenty-something years ago when I got to see Cadzilla up close at a show......and it had big bubbles on the front of the hood AND I felt bad for whoever had to redo it But that didn't take away my appreciation for what went into the car as a whole Just goes to show, nobody's perfect---when you're fooling with chemicals(paint), there's always a chance of chemical reactions I swear....some people can pick fly **** out of pepper
I agree that it's better to have a car not rotting in a field and being used, but on some high $$ cars, they should be very nice with few flaws, certainly not big ones you can see. I was at the RM auction in Toronto this past weekend. A over-restored 1951 Monarch convertible (Merc with Canadian trim) went for $192,000. (crazy if you ask me). Although they had mirrors under the car to show off how mint the car was, the one obvious flaw was that the paint on the door and front fender did not match the rest of the car. I understand that can happen when the car is painted in pieces with different batches of paint, but if I'm dropping almost $250K (buyers premium + tax) on a show car, the damm body panels should match. I wouldn't be nearly as fussed about how mint the paint job on the frame is. At the same auction, a 1953 Mercury convertible that didn't meet the reserve at $40K, that was supposed to be "one of the best in the world" based on the sign on it, had a top that I could tell from 50' away didn't fit worth a **** with big creases. Yes, I'm fussy, but I wouldn't expect those kind of flaws from a high $ restoration. Call me crazy, but I tend to worry less about whether I can eat off of the floor or whether the shocks are chrome plated and more about wavy panels, runs or orange peel in the paint.
Thank you 49coupe! I think these are xactly the points that were trying to be originally raised. Why the f shouldn't the paint match,etc. Thank you Meatball! Let's end this since it went wrong.
I believe high dollar builds competing indoors should be judged at a higher level than other shows- like a local outdoor show or cruise. Many of these shows are all about politics. Who you know & who you blo..... If the car is cool- who cares? I've seen fights break out over a award plaque & that "I spent more than you" mentality. While I usually could give a **** about an award (unless I win one )- if it's a big show where people are paying to look at cars- then IMO, the best car at the show should win, period! Many of us are there for other reasons besides the awards- like talking to people & hanging w/ your buddies. But- we all see it at all the big shows.
I go to shows just so I can leave thinking I'm not as much of a hack as I thought. When you work on your own stuff and by yourself a lot of the time you get to feeling you just aren't that good. Own worst critic syndrome. I usually come away from shows thinking maybe my work isn't all that bad. Kinda makes my day.
I agree with Meatball and I almost started a thread on this until I saw this one. I was at a couple of outdoor events this past weekend and the thing that I noticed were the large number of ISCA stickers. I'm sure this is a badge of honor thing and I used to expect to find extremely nicely done cars. I found myself feeling bad for the owners of these cars as I found flaws in them. Several cars had bad tape jobs, you could easily see where they taped the window fuzzies and other trim. The rest of the car was beautiful and I'm sure the owner spent a small fortune on his car. That being said, why not go the extra step and remove the trim? Could it take that much longer or cost that much more? I also saw a O/T Chevelle that had a copy of Super Chevy prominently displayed in his windshield with his car on the cover. The deck lid on this thing was hideous, you could tell it was fibergl***, I'd never seen such ****py body work! On the other hand, another owner started pointing out flaws in the paint on his car that I probably wouldn't have noticed.
My cars have flaws. My buddies' cars have flaws. Lots of them. Sometimes the realities of life and making mortgage payments gets in the way of having door gaps to within .025"... In my experience, the people that immediately dismiss a car because of a rust bubble or a little overspray in the door jamb are the ones that have no ****ing clue at all. A car is a BIG object and obsessing over every inch of it is fun, but it's not really practical for mere mortals. Put it together as best you can and enjoy it. Even flawless cars have critics, how many posts have been spent HERE *****ing about street roddy Ridler winners?
It is really easy to pick apart other people's work. Some of hte problems might have been shrink down (soak-down, sweat-back what ever you call it) coming up after the vehicle was finished. I say it they aren't rotting then let the owner enjoy what they have.
I see his point. I've seen nice cars with wavy bodywork. I feel bad for the owner. In most cases I know the owner paid a bodyshop to do the car - it should be right. If I do a panel for somebody as sidework or a favor, I make sure it is dead straight because I know the owner will point it out to people good or bad. And I'm even an ameteur.
This one of the reasons I like my rusty truck. The expectations for fit and finish are really low. That being said, I do appreciate nice work. .....and it does bother me to see obvious flaws in high dollar cars. If it wasn't ready for paint, it should not have been painted when it was. And I do make a distintion between high dollar cars and owner built cars. Not to say that an average guy can't build a damn nice car. Pros should do better work (deliver what they were paid to do).
Well put, Gotgas, every car at the show has flaws. Problem is, too many owners like to diss somebody else for those flaws. It's rare indeed that a flaw that the owner was unaware of is pointed out to him. When I go to a show, I don't ***ume because a car has a flaw that somebody screwed up. After all, they are....................... oh yea, cars. Cars built by people. One shouldn't presume that a BIG Name show should have all perfect cars either. The Owner of the car, whether personally doing the build, or paying a commercial shop to do it, is responsible for the quality, of the build! If all car owners that enter their cars in the big shows decided to stay away because of the flaws they know about, the shows would'nt draw enough entrants to even have a show! Amateur car builders must meet their personal standards. Commercial shop car builders must please the customer, the boss. Every boss I ever worked for in my life was focused on pleasing his boss and so on, up the ladder. In the end, shortcuts, whether by design or by ignorance of standards, decisions made by the owner of the car cannot be blamed on the (hired) builder. The proof is in the pudding. Commercial builders will tell you that they are forced to compromise every day to make the customer happy.Car shows, large or small, big name or not, all have cars with flaws. All of this talk presuming that cars built 'for show' are built better than those built at home by an amature is a narrow minded viewpoint. People that think like that have a small circle of acquaintences, or don't know any really good amature builders. I personally know of several owner-built cars, built in the home garage by people that have a day job completely diverse of the car business, that would give any car, in any show, stiff compe***ion. Very few of these cars are rarely entered in the 'big shows', partly because these guys have day jobs and don't follow the show car circuit, but more importantly I think, that they really don't give a **** about that kind of ego trip. Their ego trip was building the car the way they wanted it, along with the fact that many of them do splendid fabricating and ***embly, approaching perfection. Winning a big car show is a subjective undertaking. I say subjective, because many times 'best of show' is a tossup between a dozen or more cars, and I am sometimes of the opinion that the final judgement was, in all probability, a flip of a coin. Sometimes I get the feeling that too many people put all of the emphasis on the paint and presume that hidden defects are okay.
And if they're willing to pay for it, they don't wanna wait for it. This is where Earl Shieb's saying comes into play. Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.
The Jalopy Journal
