[6pack] Paint and interior work

[Jerry C Shaw]

I live in neighboring Connecticut, where I had difficulty finding a good paint
shop that did restorations instead of, or in addition to, insurance repairs.
The latter is much more lucrative, so your job may sit around for months while
they work on it between insurance jobs, particularly in the Northeast with ice
storms or near interstates with lots of fender benders.

I found one who specialized in restorations, but my car was there for months,
too, all the time accumulating hourly labor costs for high school kids to sand
and fill. I finally withdrew the job and went to another shop.

Don't do what I did and have the shop paint the tub, then  the panels
separately to be assembled later. You can prime it this way, but let them do
the entire body, including panel alignment attached to the frame all at once.
This is particularly important if the new paint color is not the same as the
old and everything has to be taken apart to do a good job. Getting panel gaps
and alignment right is a real pain for the amateur, and you risk dinging
painted panels putting it back together yourself.

Mine came out spectacularly, but the paint shop did it twice -- the second
time at their expense, since they screwed up the color matching (single stage
paint was not their expertise) in doing the panels separately.

So the other thing is the shop's reputation. Choose wisely and be informed,
and get a fixed price. You may not get a fixed price if they suspect hidden
rust, however. So unless you take the thing apart before-hand you or they may
not know what's underneath.

The other thing is choosing the paint technology, single stage or
clear-over-base. The latter ended up on my car, since my paint shop knew it
best.

Obviously, stay away from Maaco or Earl Schieb if you want a quality job,
though I have heard of good results from some shops, so who knows!

On the interior, I had done a complete body-off restoration and had purchased
the interior kit from Heritage instead of the big three. Given I had already
spent years getting it to the final stages, I decided to have an upholstery
shop install the kit and the Robins top, since I was tired of restoration.
Connecticut is notoriously expensive state, but Massachusetts is more
reasonable, so this wasn't cheap.

But if the interior is the only thing you plan on doing yourself, it is not a
big deal. There are lots of sources for DIY documentation.

Jerry Shaw
'74 TR6 Mallard Green http://www.triumphowners.com/977





-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:51:46 -0700
From: Ted TR6 <tedtr6 at martinwebsite.net>
Subject: [6pack] Paint and interior work
To: 6pack at autox.team.net
Message-ID: <bbf0d3a5f3f0634f4675f51b4abfb946 at martinwebsite.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

B
I am in process of getting a TR6 (been waiting for awhile and looking forward
to it) and would like to get some recommendations on painting and interior
work in the Massachusetts area.B  Thanks.