Painters: Panel on or off the car?

Both front quarter panels, the hood, and the front bumper will need small dents out and prep for paint. I can do this, but am wondering if painters prefer the body parts on the car or off for painting? Can I get some advice on this?

Also, if there are any quality painters in the Seattle area you can recommend I'd really like to hear about them.

Jw

The more things you can paint off the car, the better. I took as much as I could apart and prepped myself for painting. The shop that applied the paint for me said they had better control of the paint when they could position the parts as they wanted. I recommend hanging the parts on the car and prepping them in place (much easier) and then removing. I stripped the bumpers down to bare metal with paint remover, scraper, and sandpaper. They are aluminum and will need to be treated to get paint to stick if you do this. A pain in the butt, but man do they look great!

Good Luck.
Nick.

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Nick Shumaker
1982 911SC Coupe
nickshu@yahoo.com
PCA -- Rocky Mtn. Region

Painters will prefer the parts off the car. If you are taking these parts off, do yourself a money-saving favor. Drill small holes .125" or smaller through 2 spots on each piece you take off. Then later you can just stick a dowel pin in their to line them up again.

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Dante Oliverio
86 Turbo-Look Cab

The reason some painters might prefer the panels on the car is they don't want you to scratch the new paint once you put the car back together. Plus, if the painters have the car, they can see how their freshly applied paint matches. You wouldn't want to truck all your pieces home, only to find after bolting it all back together that the color is off just a shade.

The biggest reason to leave them on though is to avoid scratching the panels by installing.

right on, panic attack. nothing worse than painting it all apart and then upon reassembly , to find that the curvature of the door doesn't fit the quarter, etc. if you paint it apart be damn sure everything fits first. good painters cut in the edges, then assemble the body panels, and paint the car whole, with the poss. exception of the hood and engine lid.

What about areas like the door jams, which really need to be painted with the fasteners in place? How is this done correctly?

pull the hinge pins to remove door. previous alignment stays the same. paint the door hole in the body, and the ends and bottom of the door, mask when the paint has cured, put them back on, and do the outsides.

Sounds good John Walker, thanks.