Calling all professional bodyshop guys

[nokama]

Hi guys, well I've tinkered round spraying cars for a while, with good results, never used a booth or anything, just in the garage. I want to take the next step and buy a booth, and hopefully get a bit of work (I've got workshop space to put a booth).

I need some advice off you professionals about how to get into the trade, do I go train with thatcham first? do I even need insurance acreditation to start off with? what else do I need to think about? Bearing in mind I just turned 30, so I ain't really apprentice age.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated..

Edited by nokama on Monday 19th November 21:42

[Eddie 4.2]

Hi mate


What you after a booth or oven?

What sort of work do you want to do?

What paint are you useing?



Ed

[nokama]

Hi Eddie, well from what I know (which ain't that much I'll admit), I would want to use 2k epoxy primers, urethane base coats and 1k or 2k lacquers, and also have the possibility of spraying more elaborate paints as my abilities grow, aspiring to show cars flips, candies and stuff.

I like the look of the Burntwood downdraft booths with stove, but will need to find one cheap enough. I've only just started looking at booths, and haven't done much research, so any info would be really appreciated on that.

The majority of work I reckon initially would be light dents, dings and scrathes (I defo wouldn't take anything on that looked structual, or otherwise out of my league, and I did Mech Engineering at uni so have a bit of an idea about what not to touch), with some respray work as well hopefully.

I obviously couldn't take on insurance stuff, but around here anyways body shops are only really entertaining insurance stuff to guarentee payment, and there's a definite gap in the market of those who don't wanna wreck their no-claims.

I know I'm sounding a bit of a noob, but I am lol. If you wouldn't mind giving me a few pointers I'd be eternally greatful,

cheers, Will.

Edited by nokama on Wednesday 21st November 09:11

[Anatol]

You're mostly listing small/medium area repairs there. There are plenty of places that will set you up as a SMART repairer, either as on a license/franchised basis, or on a simple train-and-kit contract. You could supplement that with a cheap booth for larger respray work, and you'd be away. Do have a look through the relevant info on the environmental health, waste disposal, health and safety and other legal responsibilities you take on when starting up in bodywork, otherwise you could come a cropper quite quickly.

Oh, and in selection of basecoats, the future (and for most people, the present already) is waterborne. EU regs on maximum VOC content are going to make almost everything else (including most 1k lacquers) unavailable Real Soon Now. Having used 1k lacquers for small repairs for a good few years, and now phased them out completely, I'd say steer well away from them, the durability just isn't there.

Good luck!

Tol

[nokama]

That's great advice there Anatol, the Smart repair is a great idea too, I was thinking of getting dent devil training as well along the line somewhere, all down to money though really.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna be able to spend about 5g on a booth, I'll just have to scout around though. Another thing I am worried about is colour matching, but I suppose Smart repair training will cover that. I want to be exeptional on the colour matching, coz that seems to be the thing general public are most worried about.

[Anatol]

SMART repair training and kit has to be very precise on colour matching. If you don't have the option of painting wide to hide a poor colour match, precise identification and mixing of the right variant paint, from a top quality recipe database, is essential. Don't skimp on things like the full fandeck of colour variants, with _sprayed_ colour chips, not laser prints, and choose a quality manufacturer for your tints and recipes.

Cheap booths do come up on eBay fairly regularly. With the enforced change of paint system, quite a few paint shops will be retiring or going out of business rather than retrain and convert, so now and the next few months might be a good time to keep an eye out for second hand kit.

Unless you're regularly doing full resprays, or repairs larger than 3 or 4 panels in size, a purpose-built booth is probably not necessary to start with, and a clean workshop or unit will probably do you.

Tol

[alsaautomotive]

Hi Nokama, if you are looking into more substantial repairs then feel free to mail me. If I can help I will.
But be under no illusion there is a hell of a lot more to it than just getting a booth in.
Good luck, Al.

[Eddie 4.2]

Hi mate good choice i have a Burntwood exele top oven.I paid 5k for it and that was fitted with 6 months guarentee.


Mate here my num 07894 071 052 give me a call tommorow and i tell all you need to know and what stuff to buy.



Ed

[nokama]

Great advice guys, all good food for thought, thanks. Ed, I'll call you sometime mid morning tomorrow, thanks mate.

[106 gti]

Health and safety now are bound to pay you a visit , as now you have to log what thinners you buy and how you dispose of them.
And when your a commercial sprayer like myself it soon adds up to pay for removal of said thinners .

If your sparaying 2k or any 2 pack material you will need an inline mask which is air fed , so your breathing fresh air or the iscocianates in the 2 pack paint will kill you .

A decent compressor with a dryer to stop the water from appearing out of the spray gun ...