Brush painting cars

>>16433606
It depends, what's special about a brush job vs spray? What makes it likely worth the extra cost and time? I understand it's likely more in depth and personal with each job, but why should a customer care? You gotta have something to market it man, I think it's neat, but whats the benefits?

Do you end up with just as good or better paint jobs? Can they be show quality? How much more time goes into prep and painting? How much extra work in finishing, cutting, buffing, etc.

>>16433606
I guess you should learn to use airbrushes, make new clients and see if those new clients might be interested in hand painting for whatever advantage that technique may have.

Or go try to get into the antique cars business, those old people might be more interested in your skills

>>16433671
This guy's got a good point. Classic restorations may have a want for that, you could even see if a local shop could use you. If you're skilled you could probably get into doing interior focused work, fine detail, pinstriping and designs, possibly murals/artwork if you're artistic at all.
Alternatively, move to the states and paint weabo things for neets who like things like the jap rising sun on their hoods.

The biggest difference is the time it takes to complete the job.
The paint takes 2 or more days to touch dry, and months for most of the solvents to evaporate off so you can polish.

Some people want 2k paint. Harder to work with but can be done.
When brushed, 2K paint touch dries in hours, takes about a day before its dry enough for sanding.

The same paints dry much quicker when atomized and shot through a gun.

If flatting is required between coats, I have to wait a week before I can touch it with wetndry.

In the beginning I was mobile. I'd go to someone's house and paint their car in their driveway under a tarp that I'd hang off their house onto my van.

Minimal masking required and no overspray. Prep is basically the same.
I use automotive 1K primer filer and wetsand.

Commercials were my biggest market for a while because they are too big to fit in a standard paint booth so I'd do the job in the owners warehouse.
Now most buses and trucks are vinyl wrapped and cabs done with a spray gun.

Sometimes I'd get asked to do tractors and diggers and other machinery but I never really had an interest so I always declined those.

I can get a finish straight off the brush that is better than a factory paint job.
Different texture though. More like very small ripples in a lake than textured orage peel. Also shinier.
But it doesn't really fit in with modern cars or trucks.
Most of the time I leave it as is and won't bother polishing. Especially for commercials. The dust will rub off in time.

With some polishing work, which is basically a little flatting, and removing dust it can be flawless mirror show quality finish.

Is the end result better than spraying?
Off the brush vs out of the gun? Yes. But its a different finish too.

>>16433960

With color sanding and polishing, both brush and gun can have the same flawless finish.
Unless the color is black. Black looks infinitely deeper and glossier when brushed.


Because of the time involved it will always be more expensive than a gun job.
You can't have a commercial vehicle sitting in a shed for a week instead of outside making money.
You cant really compete in the same level as MAACO for cheap jobs either.

As for airbrushing, no chance of that happening.
I can't even draw veins on a dick.

Because of the long time the vehicle is out of commission and the type of finish obtained, restoration work suits brushpainting the most.

In the UK, Jaguars up until the XK series were all hand painted. Ford Transit vans and most trucks left the factory in primer because every company had its own livery.
The British word for painting a vehicle using a brush is Coachpainting, apparently referring to the vagons on a train. Not sure if there is a word in American English.

Aircooled VW, Citroen 2CV and H vans, Renault 4 and those kinds of cars all look great when done with a brush. Even for ones built in the 80's it looks period correct.

For American cars, I think they started spraying in the 20's, but the cutoff for it looking out of place is 1956. In my opinion.

My next move is might be getting in contact with a specialist restorer.

>>16433968
>As for airbrushing, no chance of that happening.
>I can't even draw veins on a dick.

You can always learn, I don't think you were proficient in handbrushing either when you started.

If your business is dying and getting into the restoration business is difficult, you are better off learning airbrushing and keep suggesting handbrushing to customers who might be interested, there are a lot of people who may not even know using hand brushes is a thing at all.

Unless this is a hobby for you, I think you should get on with the times and learn airbrushing

>>16434008
By airbrushing do you mean painting with the spray pistol or the pen that they do murals with.
If its the spray pistol, I know how to use that too. I learnt before brushing actually.
I find the process too fast to be enjoyable.

I didn't set out to learn how to brushpaint. It just sort of happened along the way.

If you're thinking of the mural kind of one, I honestly don't have a passion for it.
Its a completely different field.

The airbrush is just a tool for an artist.
What I'd need to learn is how to paint, not the tool itself.

It has been both a job and a hobby.
I've supported myself pretty well trough it.
I can live off of what I have saved up for quite a bit while I think about the future.

Ideally I'd be working on 4 cars at a time, all of them in a different location.
Painting or flatting one while the rest are drying undisturbed.

This isn't a dying thing. Its an abandoned one.
Like phonebooths. Everyone forgets they even existed.
Painting still happens, just in a different more convenient way.

I like the old way not only because I think the results are better, but mostly because I enjoy the process.

Thats why I stuck to it even when most of the good paints went away.
I have to custom order some of my paints now, the rest I buy off the shelf and mix in additives.

Its almost inconceivable to a lot of people that cars used to be brushpainted.

Nobody remembers them having visible brush strokes because they didn't.
So the people that grew up in the age of spraypaiting (myself included) don't even know this was ever a thing.

The only time you can tell a car was brush painted is when the painter has done a terrible job, so not only is it dead and forgotten to most car enthusiasts; everyone's glad that its gone.

I'm not attempting a revival or anything. It's never going to happen.

But I'm sure theres a nice niche for me somewhere like the US or Germany where I assume detailed and period correct restoration is appreciated.

>>16435071
>By airbrushing do you mean painting with the spray pistol or the pen that they do murals with.
I mean the spray pistol, I always thought the two had the same English name, but I meant the first, not the latter.

>I find the process too fast to be enjoyable.
Yeah well, I'm not qualified to judge your choices, but I think it's better to have a job that you kind of like (it's still painting, which you seem to be good at) than not having a job at all because all the alternatives are not niche enough for your best technique.

>Painting still happens, just in a different more convenient way.
That's the point, technology has advanced and you can now spray a whole car with a fraction of the cost and the time it takes you to brush it. For a lot of people this is good enough and the results can still be excellent if done properly. It's a win-win for everyone except, I think, nostalgic people or guys who are really into period-correct restoration, which is not really a booming niche I think.

>I like the old way not only because I think the results are better, but mostly because I enjoy the process.
I get your point, and if you can live with it then by all means you are doing the right choice.
What I got from your previous posts was that you can't really live off hand brushing anymore though.

>I have to custom order some of my paints now, the rest I buy off the shelf and mix in additives.
Are those paints adaptable to spray painting or are they brush-only? Maybe you can "invent" sick paints that can be sprayed to attract more clients since you can get your hands on custom paints.

>But I'm sure theres a nice niche for me somewhere like the US or Germany where I assume detailed and period correct restoration is appreciated.
I bet there is, if I were you I would sell my spraying skills to a body shop in between your own jobs, it sucks when you have nothing to work on because your job is too obscure for the most part.

Do you have pictures of your works?

Where are you located at?

OP just curious, im about to paint my boat and thought about doing my track car at the same time.

do you roll and tip or is it all brush?

I guess OP found out about plastidip and hung himself

>>16435305
The custom paint I get from a local shop. Its an older recipe for 2 komponent paint thats not commercially made anymore. Maybe because of environmental restrictions.
They special order it from a factory In Czeh Republic, then tint it a specific color at the shop.

I don't know whats in it and why the Czech factory can only make it in small batches.
But it brushes great, lays flat with no bubbles, and stays wet for close to an hour. Costs less than €50 per liter too.

I agree with everything you're saying.
I'm just not ready to give it up yet.

If I change jobs, its going to be something completely different.
Sounds cliche but I think I want to travel for a while first before I decide.

>>16439461
Not dead.
It takes me a while to reply because its tedious to type out long posts on phone.

>>16440599
Any pics?

>>16440640

I had some on film.
Shot a whole roll on the first nice car I ever painted - a black Heckflosse Mercedes with a front bench seat.
The pictures came out terrible.

You could always become the 21st century Von Dutch. You'd probably make more money tattooing fat chicks and prostitutes though.