Friday....... and such
Posted by Dr Diecast at 12/8/2007 8:52 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
Well..... it was a boring Friday....... one filled with me bitching under my breathe about interior reassembly, LOL. Basically a 62 Corvette interior that was part of my assembly for the day.
I had a customer who purchased a Red 62 AA Vette and wanted just the interior painted to match his real car. So....... its like no big deal..... but in the end they are a PITA. If you have ever seen a high end AA Corvette you will notice that there are alot of little chrome and painted details on the dash , door panels and such. All of course needs to look the same way when completed. Well what is nice about shooting interiors in DuPonts color system is with the additive to make it the proper stain finish it also allows you to gently scrape the paint off the chrome or painted items so it looks like it was made that way. Never the less its a PITA to do and well time consuming.
First off though....... as I said yesterday (Thurs) that I had painted some 5 interiors. Well......if you free mix shades of Red you will come to find out that sometimes the color wet is lighter then the color dry. Kinda like painting a wall in your home...... and the paint drys darker then the way it is in the can. So..... you can see where im going with this..... I got the small boards I had all the interior parts attached to into the shop and noticed that the Red was NOT the shade I had mixed but too dark by a shade. So..... I went back and remixed the color..... reshot the parts and later in the afternoon set about assembling things. All is good now and there will some unique pretty cars coming down the road for one of the DB brothers.
I will post a picture Monday of all the cars leaving here that day.... yes I know I wanted them gone Friday but hey I cant make things go faster then I can.
OK..... so I remembered something yesterday that I thought I would touch on today as my little rant of the day thing. Its blow hard customers.... or potential ones, LOL.
Now....... I'm not out to insult anyone and I haven't really had to deal with this in a while but still its kinda funny.
Over the years I have talked to 1000's of people about getting there cars done. I have done 100's of cars and appreciate all of work I have been contracted to do but I still have to chuckled at the blow hards. You know the guys that will get you all the work you will ever need. The ones who have at least a dozen friends that will want there car done. The one's who...... yanno..... if ya "take care" of him will get you $1000.00's in work.
I have had my share but a couple of the best were the guy I did the 63 Lemans convertible for. He had called about doing his car....... of course was looking for a deal being this was the first Lemans conversion I was doing the price was reflective of the unknown I was entering into. He of course talked of all the other guys he knew that had Lemans convertibles and there club and all the business he would get me so I should "hook him up" right. Well...... I gave him the price...... he had to think about it and call me back. He did and again started with the "all the business" line..... well I have played that game for years in business so I knew exactly how to deal with it. Basically I told him..... you get me business and I will pay you a commission. So.... the deal was I would pay him $25.00 for every guy he sent me. Well....... as much as this seems simple he again tried to change it too.. well I WILL get you 4 guys so why not just take the $100.000 off my contract and then you (me) don't have to mail me anything, LOL. Ahhh the love I can feel it can you ? I said, nope..... not how it works with me and if the price to do your car is a problem then you might want to go back and do another search on the internet and find someone cheaper.
Long story short I did the car...... it turned out great and ..... well that was about 2 years ago and have yet to get another customer from him.... gee.... am I surprised ? Nooooooooooo
So that brings me to the second guy I dealt with that I will mention. He I met at one of the Goodguys shows I did in CA a couple years ago. He has a few cars one was a Magnum SRT8. So he calls me after the show and wants to get the car done and we enter into a contract. I receive the diecast car and well its just a R/T. I tell him this and say I can make a SRT8 out of it..... but it will cost him, LOL, Im such a money grubbing whore aren't I, LOL. Well.. this of course leads to stories of other cars he owns and his buddies 32 Roadster. He says because the SRT8 is a daily driver he really didn't want to spend a ton on having it done but would rather spend the money on his custom 57 Chevy. So after some more conversation I decide to eat the labor to create an SRT8 under the premise this will be a good customer. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.... which leads me to say, guys dont let your kids sniff paint fumes, it makes them STUPID, lol.
Skip forward a couple months..... I have now made all the body mods to create an SRT8.... grill change, front bumper rework, rear bumper rework, filling the license plate area and lastly creating something closer wheel wise out of the stock wheels. In reality I probably should have charged $150-200.00 more for what I did but hey....... he knows people, he owns cool cars...... he seemed like he was truthful. Yeah im a dope, LOL.
So I send him pics of the car...... he''s excited...... I send him the car.. he's real happy... called to tell me so.... couldn't believe I could duplicate the little pin striping on his car. Has was going to have his buddy call me about the roadster... and after he got the engine swapped in the 57 would be calling about that.
That... was at least 18 months ago... and ....... nuttin, nuttin but me learning how to make an SRT8 out of an R/T. See.... even though I get shortchanged sometimes its still all a learning experience. I love this business because I do get to push myself out of my comfort zone and thats what makes it fun......... sometimes, LOL. But....... I cant do work for free..... thats just stupid........ well I can if I find a nice hot rich widow to marry, LOL.
OK , sorry about the pictures.......I will have to do something about that. But while I was searching for the Magnum pic I found this cool picture. Just thought I would post it for the heck of it. Enjoy..... and if ya don't know what it is, its a 1970 Coronet R/T hardtop.......hehe.
OK...... im out
I had a customer who purchased a Red 62 AA Vette and wanted just the interior painted to match his real car. So....... its like no big deal..... but in the end they are a PITA. If you have ever seen a high end AA Corvette you will notice that there are alot of little chrome and painted details on the dash , door panels and such. All of course needs to look the same way when completed. Well what is nice about shooting interiors in DuPonts color system is with the additive to make it the proper stain finish it also allows you to gently scrape the paint off the chrome or painted items so it looks like it was made that way. Never the less its a PITA to do and well time consuming.
First off though....... as I said yesterday (Thurs) that I had painted some 5 interiors. Well......if you free mix shades of Red you will come to find out that sometimes the color wet is lighter then the color dry. Kinda like painting a wall in your home...... and the paint drys darker then the way it is in the can. So..... you can see where im going with this..... I got the small boards I had all the interior parts attached to into the shop and noticed that the Red was NOT the shade I had mixed but too dark by a shade. So..... I went back and remixed the color..... reshot the parts and later in the afternoon set about assembling things. All is good now and there will some unique pretty cars coming down the road for one of the DB brothers.
I will post a picture Monday of all the cars leaving here that day.... yes I know I wanted them gone Friday but hey I cant make things go faster then I can.
OK..... so I remembered something yesterday that I thought I would touch on today as my little rant of the day thing. Its blow hard customers.... or potential ones, LOL.
Now....... I'm not out to insult anyone and I haven't really had to deal with this in a while but still its kinda funny.
Over the years I have talked to 1000's of people about getting there cars done. I have done 100's of cars and appreciate all of work I have been contracted to do but I still have to chuckled at the blow hards. You know the guys that will get you all the work you will ever need. The ones who have at least a dozen friends that will want there car done. The one's who...... yanno..... if ya "take care" of him will get you $1000.00's in work.
I have had my share but a couple of the best were the guy I did the 63 Lemans convertible for. He had called about doing his car....... of course was looking for a deal being this was the first Lemans conversion I was doing the price was reflective of the unknown I was entering into. He of course talked of all the other guys he knew that had Lemans convertibles and there club and all the business he would get me so I should "hook him up" right. Well...... I gave him the price...... he had to think about it and call me back. He did and again started with the "all the business" line..... well I have played that game for years in business so I knew exactly how to deal with it. Basically I told him..... you get me business and I will pay you a commission. So.... the deal was I would pay him $25.00 for every guy he sent me. Well....... as much as this seems simple he again tried to change it too.. well I WILL get you 4 guys so why not just take the $100.000 off my contract and then you (me) don't have to mail me anything, LOL. Ahhh the love I can feel it can you ? I said, nope..... not how it works with me and if the price to do your car is a problem then you might want to go back and do another search on the internet and find someone cheaper.
Long story short I did the car...... it turned out great and ..... well that was about 2 years ago and have yet to get another customer from him.... gee.... am I surprised ? Nooooooooooo
So that brings me to the second guy I dealt with that I will mention. He I met at one of the Goodguys shows I did in CA a couple years ago. He has a few cars one was a Magnum SRT8. So he calls me after the show and wants to get the car done and we enter into a contract. I receive the diecast car and well its just a R/T. I tell him this and say I can make a SRT8 out of it..... but it will cost him, LOL, Im such a money grubbing whore aren't I, LOL. Well.. this of course leads to stories of other cars he owns and his buddies 32 Roadster. He says because the SRT8 is a daily driver he really didn't want to spend a ton on having it done but would rather spend the money on his custom 57 Chevy. So after some more conversation I decide to eat the labor to create an SRT8 under the premise this will be a good customer. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.... which leads me to say, guys dont let your kids sniff paint fumes, it makes them STUPID, lol.
Skip forward a couple months..... I have now made all the body mods to create an SRT8.... grill change, front bumper rework, rear bumper rework, filling the license plate area and lastly creating something closer wheel wise out of the stock wheels. In reality I probably should have charged $150-200.00 more for what I did but hey....... he knows people, he owns cool cars...... he seemed like he was truthful. Yeah im a dope, LOL.
So I send him pics of the car...... he''s excited...... I send him the car.. he's real happy... called to tell me so.... couldn't believe I could duplicate the little pin striping on his car. Has was going to have his buddy call me about the roadster... and after he got the engine swapped in the 57 would be calling about that.
That... was at least 18 months ago... and ....... nuttin, nuttin but me learning how to make an SRT8 out of an R/T. See.... even though I get shortchanged sometimes its still all a learning experience. I love this business because I do get to push myself out of my comfort zone and thats what makes it fun......... sometimes, LOL. But....... I cant do work for free..... thats just stupid........ well I can if I find a nice hot rich widow to marry, LOL.
OK , sorry about the pictures.......I will have to do something about that. But while I was searching for the Magnum pic I found this cool picture. Just thought I would post it for the heck of it. Enjoy..... and if ya don't know what it is, its a 1970 Coronet R/T hardtop.......hehe.
OK...... im out
Great job today on the blog. The reading gets better each day. Looking forward to seeing some of those cars you painted the interior red on, wonder which ones I really want to see. Nice comment on being a whore, but I thought the pussy found you, not you selling pussy. Enjoy the weekend pal
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