ok i know nothing about body work. but im wanting to learn, so that way i can repair my own dings dents, shave stuff, and repair small rust places. can any of you all help me in my quest to learn???
thanbks guys and gals
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you have to practice. you can learn from just reading. to shave you need to know how to weld. learn how to weld and use a grinder and you should be good. also learn how to fiberglass, it can become very useful. i learned how to glass by just pickin' up some resisn and matt and just started doin' little projects.
got any books you recommend
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You can't learn by reading...
Go to school for it... or find a local shop who's willing to let you into an apprenticeship type of program and teach you the PROPER ways of doing things.
Auto body and paint is not nearly as "easy" as some people tend to think it to be or make it out to be. It takes hands on training, and you have to be trained on the proper methods, techniques... what to look for...
With body work... not only must you be able to SEE what you're looking at to see if it's right or not... but you have to know how to FEEL if it's right or not. You need to know what to do for various types of things... and what to do next if something doesn't work the way you want it to...
Painting... totally different ball game. You need to know your chemicals, mix ratios, gun psi, spray patterns, fan patterns, steps, .... what do you do if you get fisheyes? What do you do if your paint "lifts"... etc etc. (obviously, you don't FEEL paint... it's all seeing, and knowing what to look for)
The body techs and painters that are on here (myself included)... could sit on here and gives you months of typing of things ( if one of us had that amount of time)... and it still wouldn't be TOO helpful because you're not SEEING what it's supposed to look like or how it's supposed to FEEL right.
Best bet is to go out there and get yourself some hands on experience with a trained professional.
That's not saying along the way that one of us can't help you with a technical problem or something smaller...
I'm by no means trying to discourage you from learning or wanting to learn. It's cool and all... but it would be much better for YOU in the long run to also have someone local to you who can teach you the "hands on" part you need to learn that cannot be taught over the internet... ya know??
ya i see what you mean
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beat me to it
i say goin to school is a waste i never went to school
i started off pushin a broom and washing cars, and being the shop bitch, i was very fortunate that i was taken in by a old grumpy guy and taught this trade
hands on experience is the best way to learn, to many scerniors can happen that you won`t be taught in school
now the flip side to it
it is a dirty nasty trade, the shops i worked for never ever appreciate you all they care about is how many cars you can push out the door your knees will give out your back will give out if your a combo tech you have the risk of blood poisioning you weld run the risk of getting another disease your hands hurt you will get carpal tunnel allot of my friends have it and it has ruined and crippled them to a point of never being able to work again
i have seen painters passing out due to heat due to the poision you eat when ya paint any exposed piece of skin will let that poision in your body even your hair
i could go on about the trade but i don`t want to discourage you at all kinda makes me happy to see the young crowd want to learn this age old trade
can i haz bondo
^^^
I was taught by a guy who was impressed with my art work, and had asked me if I ever thought about getting into airbrushing on cars... and from there taught me everything he knows. I'm still working with the airbrushing part, right now I can do basic stuff, but I have some guinea pig cars to practice the more complicated stuff on (murals, etc)
The guy I learned from is very old school, and had been in the business for years... (think 30 years).
Big daddy is pretty right about schooling, but sometimes if you can take some classes and learn some of the basics from school... a shop will take you in and help you along with the rest. If you want to do good work, that's the way to start (or moreso one of the ways to start)
The trade itself can take a toll on you... just try to keep yourself in shape and follow ALL the safety guidelines.
I wish you all the luck in learning the trade, and it is good to see people wanting to learn, if you go about it the right way. And like I said, us body techs and painters will be here to help you along the way with technical questions or whatnot... but it's impossible for us to teach you how to do things properly with just typing words on a screen.
Good luck!!
true dat !!!
ya can`t pick up a how to do body work book and read it and call ur self a body man
just won`t happen
i wish ya luck to again, i hope you find a decent shop that will not make you hate this trade like i do lol
can i haz bondo
I agree with most of what big daddy and fallen angel have said except for the schooling part
I have been in the trade for multiple years now and am currently attending school at wyotech (car school)
yes there are scenarios that do come up that they cant give you hands on with but can tell you wjhat to look for and what to do
all of our instructors r body men from the area that have been doing this for years
its just like being in a shop
not many shops want to do apprenticeships anymore
yes please go to school if you want to go for auto body and it is hard to 2 because I took auto body class during my jr and sr year of school.
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Big daddy took the words out of my mouth. He has the same experience with shops as I do, DON"T do it for a living. Its been low pay for the hard work and you deal with some harmfull chemicals, and the shop owners don't really give a crap about you. Its been that way for years and it not getting any better. Learn something more in the field of technology or something. I know in my area they have night courses in autobody which give you access to the schools equiptment as well as some basic instruction on how to do it. You can read all you want, and you may have the steps you are going to take in your head, but it takes hands on experience to really learn it. As with anything, the more you do it, and deal with things that go wrong, the easier it will become for you. Now stop reading these stupid forums and go out and practice and make some mistakes. Hope you are the type of person who has a lot of patience, you need it. Just don't do it for a living, it is a way to turn a perfectly fun hobby into a something you dred doing, while people pushing a broom in the warehouse down the street are getting better pay and benefits then you.
http://victorylap.50webs.com
Autobody/ paint
i will say this though, i now work for cars collision and it`s a huge corperate company that is in ill and indiana and colorado i make great money how does take home 1,600 sometimes 2,000 sound???
i have full health insurance, vision dental, my daughter is covered too, but it took me 15 yrs to finally find a decent shop i am in now
but again the shop manager does not give a rat ass about any one of us all he cares about is how fast we work numbers that produce money am i treated good??? sometimes am i appreciated??? nope!!!
that`s why if the boss gives us a hard time we can call human resources and bitch and complain and he gets in trouble not us it`s kinda nice
i am kinda biased about school i went to a trade school for mechanics and am ase certified i am alo i-car certified also ppg certifed does that @!#$ count? NOPE!!! does it matter ?? NOPE!!!! i worked with kids that went to a trade school like some do and i am sorry but they didn`t teach nothing i would laugh at some of them becasue some didn`t even know how to remove a bumper on a ford tarus all i am sayin is school might get ya in the door but when it comes time to show what ya made of then let`s see how far schooling got ya
shop managers willa sk ya if you can save a door and a 1/4 panle and or a core support, will school teach you that??? will school teach you sometimes do some african ameriacn enginnering?? on a car that has to go to late to get parts for it nope!!!!
our trade is a streesful one , dirty posionuos hazzardous bull @!#$ trade
enjoy the years of pain and stress that will follow
can i haz bondo
i learned from my autobody teacher, 6 yrs worth of it(yes it took me 6 yrs to finish highschool) and i still dont know everything there is to know... but i doubt im gonna go into autobody as my type of work... i'm leaning more towards painting, as i was always better at painting... body work kinda bores me...
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I went to school for it.. didnt learn a thing besides how to get it on with the cosmotology chicks next door..
Anyways I basicly learned from watching and teaching myself.. first shop i worked at the guy did things totally different.. 2nd shop the same way. basicly there are a few MAJOR rules, the rest everyone has their own way and you just pick the best way for you. It's not brain surgery or anything but it is a hard job.
It becomes so much a part of you you cant tell anymore.. Like I can take one look at a car and tell you everythingg wrong with it.. I can see a car from across an intersection and tell the fender is slightly mismatched.
I say try getting in a shop cleaning cars or something... work from there
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and do you thin painting is any different??? it`s not it`s the same thing over and over and when something happens it`s always the painters fault
next to the high level of stress plus all the poision you will eat in the yr`s to come it`s not fun it sucks try being a combo tech doin everything your self start to finish talk about stress
trust me you think now ....oh ya if i learn to be a painter ya it`s cool not a biggie right??? wrong!!!! when i started off the shop i worked for the body men never ever finished their own work I had to coat the panle with a finishing glaze prime it block it maks it off the body men didn`t do @!#$ the painters did
the shop i work for now the painters have it made i see them and laugh, they never use a black just a d.a. for the primer, color matching does not matter, we finish our work for them so all he has to do is prime it and prep it
this field sucks bottom line lol
i bitch about it becasue i am done with it i hate the only good thing that came out of is i can build my own stuff and do side work on the cars that i want to take in
at work i look at it this way i get to pay my bills, w hen i am in my garage is when i get to do the art work
can i haz bondo
big daddy wrote:and do you thin painting is any different??? it`s not it`s the same thing over and over and when something happens it`s always the painters fault
next to the high level of stress plus all the poision you will eat in the yr`s to come it`s not fun it sucks try being a combo tech doin everything your self start to finish talk about stress
trust me you think now ....oh ya if i learn to be a painter ya it`s cool not a biggie right??? wrong!!!! when i started off the shop i worked for the body men never ever finished their own work I had to coat the panle with a finishing glaze prime it block it maks it off the body men didn`t do @!#$ the painters did
the shop i work for now the painters have it made i see them and laugh, they never use a black just a d.a. for the primer, color matching does not matter, we finish our work for them so all he has to do is prime it and prep it
this field sucks bottom line lol
i bitch about it becasue i am done with it i hate the only good thing that came out of is i can build my own stuff and do side work on the cars that i want to take in
at work i look at it this way i get to pay my bills, w hen i am in my garage is when i get to do the art work
dayum straight!!
Here's another side story for the rest of ya...
I was working at this HUGE chain of dealerships in the body shop... as a combo tech (didn't get paid a combo tech's salary... but that's what I did)
The painter... who hated me from the beginning... I don't know why... my FIRST day there he looked right at me and said "women don't belong in a garage, in a shop, or around cars..."... Now... the way I am... I thought to myself... "ok... maybe he just has a really really bad sense of humor".
SO anywho, one of the body techs, who was rarely ever there... did a crappy job on fixing this $52,000 Caddy SRX I think that was brand new, on the lot, quarter got knocked in on a windstorm with wind gusts of 70mph (sign got knocked into it)... well anyway... the body guy who was rarely ever there... did a crappy job fixing it... then it went to the painter...
This was a new GM silver... which had no variances listed whatsoever in the computer and the book. (A variance is a different "shade" of the same color... the longer the color is in production, usually the greater the amount of variances of the color)
Anywho's... he painted it... and it came out wayyy too dark. So the Manager asked me if I wanted a shot at it since he messed it up. He had the painter prep it........
So... I mixed up the color a little lighter, and blended it in to the adjacent panels. Looked beyoootiful... as far as the color went... you couldn't tell it had been repainted....
However... after painting it... you could see all the scratches that the painter had put in it when he was prepping... which looking back on it... I think he did intentionally....
but yet... it was my fault.
Granted... I love painting... because I am an artist by nature. You can sit something in front of me... and I can draw it up exact... or pretty darn close to exact.
I agree with you guys on most things. Although I'm a big believer in the school thing. I'm in my third year of school here at Penn College in PA. I'm doing Collision Repair and Automotive Technology. I've learned a @!#$load up here. By going to school, working and learning from my dad, and working at a big Honda dealership, ive learned quite a bit in my lifetime so far.
School is definitly a plus in my book.
I went to tech school. I was a combo tech at all the places I worked. Did pretty much everything but work on the frame rack. I got out of working in shops by the time most of them were setting up an assembly line type thing were you have one job, and do that same job everyday. I was always low paid in shops, and sticking little money I got into tools. Now here i am in my 30's wondering what to do, actually considering going to school to learn something else because of the way things are. Don't really want to this late in life, but may have to. Things are not getting better and see too many people in the trade that want out. What are you going to do if your in a shop who doesn't have the proper saftey equiptment, you become sensitized to the iso's and can't even go near them anymore. I tell everyone who is still young to learn something else for a living, to just do it for there own enjoyment. I've had one shop owner that was just a downright jerk, and another who didn't always have a check on friday, who also cheated me out of some money. One place I worked I had to paint some bodywork another guy did a few times, and was usually in the booth fixing his work. I made sure to point it out, so it wasn't me getting bitched at. I still enjoy bodywork and painting, but as far as shops, I don't bother until I see things change. Sorry to hear about your experience fallin, that sucks that someone would have a problem just because you are a women. Most places take someone out of school, throw them out in the shop and expect them to know everything, but give them low pay and no help with additional training. I always got along very well with my coworkers, its just the owners or management thats the problem. Its a lot of stress running a shop too, but no reason to treat workers like crap. I won't even go into the guy I was working for while just starting tech school. He was a real dikhead.
http://victorylap.50webs.com
Autobody/ paint
Meckster.org (The Angry One) wrote:I agree with you guys on most things. Although I'm a big believer in the school thing. I'm in my third year of school here at Penn College in PA. I'm doing Collision Repair and Automotive Technology. I've learned a @!#$load up here. By going to school, working and learning from my dad, and working at a big Honda dealership, ive learned quite a bit in my lifetime so far.
School is definitly a plus in my book.
lol......i am sorry you have allot to learn about the collision end of this @!#$ty trade...lol...
can i haz bondo
now i hope to teh guy that started this thread reads what we all are saying about being a body man
it has it`s up`s and it has it`s down`s
if you find a good shop you will make allot of money if your commision if your by the hour the highest i was paid was 22.00 an hour
i hope we all helped you out some what
can i haz bondo
big daddy wrote:Meckster.org (The Angry One) wrote:I agree with you guys on most things. Although I'm a big believer in the school thing. I'm in my third year of school here at Penn College in PA. I'm doing Collision Repair and Automotive Technology. I've learned a @!#$load up here. By going to school, working and learning from my dad, and working at a big Honda dealership, ive learned quite a bit in my lifetime so far.
School is definitly a plus in my book.
lol......i am sorry you have allot to learn about the collision end of this @!#$ty trade...lol...
whats that suppossed to mean
