Painting
Our workshop does not specialize in car painting. On average, we paint only 3-5 bodies per year. Therefore, it is difficult to compare the cost of painting in our workshop with the cost of specialized car painting centers. The aim of our workshop is to restore cars as close to their original factory appearance as possible, while ensuring the highest possible quality of workmanship and materials, as well as protection from rust. The question of costs in the case of restoration is secondary. The workshop has accumulated many years of experience in restoring cars made of wood, aluminum, fiberglass and metal with and without tinned bodies. Different paint and surface preparation materials are used for each car body material.
Painting technology is constantly changing and evolving, and our body paint specialists are regularly trained and certified to work with the highest quality materials.
The cost of painting the car body consists of two main components:
1. The time required to prepare the car body. It depends on the type and size of the car body, as well as on the technology specified by the manufacturer of the paintwork material for preparing the body for painting.
2. The cost of paintwork material can reach even 5,000 euros per body.
We mainly use Mercedes Benz Glasurit or Herbert (Standox) historic paint in our workshop. If necessary, paint and varnish materials of the R-M brand are used. Each of these manufacturers has developed a special paint system for classic cars and also separated the materials. Here you can find Glasurit for base and top coat, R-M Paint system Oldtimer, service sheets and Standox describing the evolution of vehicle paint technology. Based on our experience, we can say that the Standox Classic is more labor-intensive and more material-intensive than Glasurit or R-M. Surface preparation of Standox Classic is based on the desire to protect the metal surface of the car body from moisture as much as possible, and Standox achieves this as follows:
“Always apply a thin insulation layer between the bare metal and the stopper. Otherwise, the stopper acts like a dry sponge that absorbs the water and passes it on to the metal. Standox recommends a two-coat build-up consisting of an acid primer and a 2K filler. The acid primer has a passivating and corrosion-inhibiting effect. In combination with the 2K filler, it also provides excellent adhesion to the metallic substrate on the one hand and to the topcoat on the other hand. The 2K filler isolates sanding marks and pores and helps to even out the surface. It is the ideal basis for the topcoat. Instead, it is important to carry out all steps of the refinishing process with utmost care. This also means that an insulation must be repeated as soon as the damaged body part is sanded through to the bare metal – even if this happens only in tiny areas.”
Additional costs arise if the car owner, in addition to painting, wants to treat the car body with anti-corrosion materials. In the workshop we offer two methods:
1. Additional car body zinc galvanizing. The cleaned body of the car was coated with molten zinc spray. The molten zinc is atomized with compressed air to create a spray stream that applies the coating onto the car body`s surface being sprayed. Anti-corrosion zinc coating is applied with oxy-propane system. The body of the car is galvanized, the structure is good for painting and it is definitely better than the ground paint.
2. The cleaned body of the car was KTL coating. Cathodic dip-paint lacquering is an electro-chemical process. It is also called cathodic dip-lacquering. Here the object is coated in a bath of aqueous, electrically conductive dipping lacquer, using DC voltage. The negatively charged work piece attracts the anodic lacquer-particles and those adhere as an even layer on the surfaces of the work piece. Afterwards in the baking-process the added lacquer is baked at a temperature of approximately 120°C-180°C. The coating-thickness of the lacquer applied onto the work piece in our process adds up to between 10 µm and 15 µm. The coating layer merges with the surface of the object into a homogeneous, compact surface film.
At the end of the work, the workshop guarantees the body painting in accordance with the selected material and additional type of protection. For example, using the KTL body protection method and the Standox Classic paint system, the workshop provides a 12-year warranty on all painted body surfaces.
