need help with body/paint work

[vercingetorix]

I live in New Mexico and cannot seem to find a decent body/paint shop.I would like to avoid bondo and use body solder but the only one I found quoted me 15-20 THOUSAND! with me stripping the car. It is a '71 with very little to do on it body wise.

My question is does anyone know of a good shop either in New Mexico or Arizona? I would even be willing to trailer it to Texas.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best,

H Houghton

[EScanlon]

With the rarity of Body Solder Men approaching Hen's Teeth proportions, 15-20 thousand may be cheap.

Are you sure you know what you're asking for? Why such a strict avoidance of Bondo?

Those are the first things that come to my mind.

Good luck in your search.

E

[VaGuS510]

why no bondo? Bondo gets a bad wrap because it is abused. People that don't know how to used it try to. I have a 510 project car and it had probably over a gallon of plastic body filler on the rear tail light panel. No joke, it was over an inch thick in spots. This gives plastic filler a bad image but in reality, if you use the least amount possible no one will ever know. It will look just as good and probably save you a lot of money. In fact, most of the time idiots use plastic filler to cover their shotty work. Most of the time the shotty work becomes obvious elsewhere, like the paint itself.

[vercingetorix]

All my experiences with bondo have been worse than negative. Cracking,popping off,I think it is horrid. I would like to do this once and be done with it.

Best,

H houghton

[sakijo]

Doesn't matter what you use, if it's not done right, it will be bad news. I've seen lead solder jobs that were up to a half-inch thick butted up against and covering the rusted panels. Yup, you guessed it, the steel was rusting because the prep work wasn't done right and all that solder was being pushed up by the rust underneath. My advice to you is to find a good shop and ask for references.

my 2 cents

[Pennyman]

Even if you avoid bondo like the plague, some sort of plastic glazing putty will most likely need to be used to sort out any small imperfections. Can't break out the lead and the torch once the primer is sprayed...

I've seen some bad bondo jobs too, but it's all in the prep work my friend.

[1 Bravo 6]

H Houghton,

Regardless of how car cancer is repaired, you'll more than likely need to use a filler to cover up the slight imperfections. Don't get too down on filler, done correctly, it can turn a reasonable job into a good job.

By the way, you'll find some very knowledgeable blokes on this site, when it comes to Z Cars. (EScanlon is one of them).

Rick.

:devious: :devious:

[280z1975]

I live in New Mexico and cannot seem to find a decent body/paint shop.I would like to avoid bondo and use body solder but the only one I found quoted me 15-20 THOUSAND! with me stripping the car. It is a '71 with very little to do on it body wise.

My question is does anyone know of a good shop either in New Mexico or Arizona? I would even be willing to trailer it to Texas.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best,

H Houghton

Go to any body repair place (even the good ones) and they all use bondo (or similar plasitc fillers).

I had a REALLY bad set of waves in my roof. I had a choice of cutting off the old one and having a new one welded on, or body filler. I choose body filler and it cost me about 15 bucks in bondo (just under 2 quarts) and a lot of time, but the roof looks WAY better and was way cheaper ... will anyone ever know, probably not ... I did the prep the right way and it's covered up and sealed with 4 coats of epoxy primer. It should last a long long time.

If you do the solder route I would suggest and still want to avoid the body filler for the smaller spots is to get a Paintless-Dent-Removal guy to come out and smooth out the bad spots, the good ones can do a really nice job. But they are $$$, usually 40-50 bucks a dent :stupid:

[vercingetorix]

You gentlemen have gotten me thinking.

I still need to find a decent body shop however.

Best,

H Houghton

[26th-Z]

Here is the rear dog-leg portion of the rocker I cut out of 26th after she was dipped and all the rust removed. This is a metal patch repair that was done in 1990 and the filler was lead. Point being, that if you don't do it right, it makes no difference between bondo and lead. Lead repair is a dying breed. Lead is poisonous. There really isn't any need to use lead these days.

Best of luck finding a body shop, I will tell you that I interviewed six or seven shops before I found the guy I am working with. I hear horror stories night and day about body shops and feel so lucky to have the shop I have. Frankly, if you want a really nice job, go to a restoration shop. Body shops make their money on fast collision work. Restoration shops are more geared for the type of work you may be looking for. Yes, they are far more expensive, but the cost of the hassle and bad feelings is far greater.

See if you can't find a shop that will let you do the grunt work. You'll save a few bucks, learn something in the process, and get far better results from your own motivation to take your free time and do it right. Probably the worst thing you can do is drop your car off and hope someone knows what kind of results you expect.

Chris

[Montezuma]

Great advice for any hobbiest 26th. H, Just remember you usually get what you pay for so proceed with caution.

[vercingetorix]

It would be nice if there was a state by state or area listing of reliable shops