Learning the trade.
by Valik R.

Buying a car from an auction or from a salvage dealer could be very profitable. You will end up spending half of what you would pay at a dealer if you buy a totaled auto from an auction and then restore it, wheather yourself or have a friend of a friend do it for you.

Learning to repair it is not impossible, it just takes practice like any other "hobby". I started working on cars in 1997. I didn't know the first thing. Bought a sanding longboard, some supplies abd went at it. It looked real ugly the first couple of tries and then I started to get a hang of it.

The main thing is to buy light hits. If you get something that is real smashed it will cost alot to fix it and involve alot of work and then it might not be worth doing this even tho the car may go for cheap at the auction. If you get something that's has light damage, most likely you will just replace some parts, maybe do some bondo work and then paint.

Painting is tricky in general. But if you stick to one product line and get used to it it's not bad. Alot of people think that painting a car is impossible for just anybody. Not so, any one can learn. Use two stage paint (base coat & clear coat). Paint goes on dry. Don't try to make it glossy, that's what the clear coat is for. Then clear over the top. When spraying clear coat put on about 3 to 4 coats of clear dry (don't worry about the orange peel, once it settles down it will spread out and become nice and shiny). Don't over spray, you will get runs. This paint job will be fine for most cars. If you are working on something that's worth alot or if you want to have a really nice paint job, I wouldn't mess with it and have someone that does this for a living paint it. It may cost you but over all you should have your car done at about half of what the car is worth when done.

For more detailed process click links below.

Buying a car at an auction
Buying Parts
Frame work
Bodywork
Assembly
Paint Prep
Painting
Detailing
Selling
Legal info.