Originally posted by jtkz13@Dec 12 2004, 04:34 AM
Yeah, finding a shop that can properly match paint is tough, especially if your color is metallic.
Glad to see its fixed up, and now its at least paid off, right?
Hope to see it at ROTB. B)
I bought it with cash, so in that sense it has been paid off since day one. In the sense that cars are a constant source of
surprises in my life, it will never be paid off :grin2:
The pinstriping looks great! Pardon my ignorance if you mentioned it elsewhere, but did you find the original guy that did it, or did someone else repair it? If it was someone else, they did an excellent job of carrying through the design! Not an easy thing to do...
This is the
fourth time that car has been pinstriped. When I bought it in 1998, it was already pinstriped. Fairly odd to find a family sedan sort of car with custom striping. Strangely, it also came with oversize tires, but not in terms of treadwidth, but in terms of sidewall height! Imagine our cars poised even higher than their usual stance
In Dec 2000 it was hit the first time. It got a new trunk lid and rear fascia that time, so the trunk lid had to be striped. The bodyshop threw away the old lid before the striper could see it, so it got a completely new design in the back. That shop did not do good work, they got the trunk lid to close properly, but the interior plastic shell didn't line up. So, I didn't want to go back to them.
The second incident was my fault. I turned too sharply in my own driveway and forgot about a conduit box that sticks out from the side of the house (it was night.) That scraped a line down my driver front fender. I had it fixed at the same shop I used for the most recent incident. That time they did a good job, and their striping subcontractor matched the design well with the other fender.
For this September's event, I went back to the same shop, with the results described above. Their current striper refused to take the job, so I had to hunt down an independent guy. Fortunately, I work with a street rod officianado, who had some business cards he collected from car shows. I called the one that seemed to do work most like mine, and he worked out well. It cost me $100 for 2 hours work fixing the nose, sailplane, half the stripes down the driver side, plus he touched up all the nicks.
It was interesting to watch the process, it took 1.5 hours to match and mix the paint, then only half an hour to apply it. The colors aren't "out of the can" and they have 9 years of fade.