Jim Herman
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Scrap is just going crazy high around here. It seems in a weakening economy precious metals go on the rise, but I cant figure the corrolation of scrap steel going through the roof.
I heard on the news people were beginning to steal man-hole covers! A local dealer is losing cat converters off new cars like crazy. I never thought I’d see so much theft of generally worthless things, like porch benches and light fixtures.
You would think the scrap dealer/purchaser would ask some simple questions like “where did you get 50 new converters, and 25 man-hole covers?”, but they don’t seem to.
At ant rate, it’s good for the honest man, but like anything else, it doesn’t take long for the crooks to catch on. Lock up your lawn furniture!,LOL!
Jim
People will probably want to shoot me, but the “pimped” imports shown in my pictures in the gallery have pearl mixed with mixing clear and binder as a “home made” tri coat. It’s alot cheaper than some of the alternatives. I measure and write down the formula, and number of coats though.
The nice thing about it is no one else will touch them when they need repair,LOL!
Back in the day, I used to throw a teaspoon of House of Kolor flake in the first coat of clear. I always do something different on finishes, so the local DRP shop can’t touch it, and the Progressive girl can’t find it in her computer. It always ended up being a “line item” for them and would say something like “add for custom paint-10.0”.
The picture in the gallery looked like the old “flake in clear trick” to me, but it’s kind of hard to tell. At any rate, good luck, it’s nothing a few hours of time and two hundred bucks of wasted material won’t fix, LOL!
Jim
Thats what I used to run into, bodyman. When I got an update for the database, I’d re-enter a job from a year ago exactly the same, and the labor would drop as much a 10%!
On flat rate you should get a little faster each time you do a procedure, to a point, and then they cut the time down and it seems you are spinning your wheels trying to become more efficient and profitable.
That used to be the benefit of working at a dealer shop. You would work on one or two vehicle lines, and paint maybe eight different colors. You could get good and fast, and knock down some money. Now, the dealer shops sold out, and you have to bust a nut to make a dollar.
I think if you could somehow get shops to pay a decent salary (and I mean decent, not 10 bucks an hour) it might force shops to start charging a more reasonable rate and help keep them from giving away the farm at the techs expense.
The database providors have really helped put the hammer down on the industry. The DEG may help a little, but it would take a whole lot more participation.
JMT’s
Jim