Quote:
Originally Posted by McMurphy
Just read this post.
I am both happy and sad to read this took 5 years. Sad that it is such a large part of your life spent on it and then they may end up selling it... but happy because I know I can slow down and be patient with mine (that I just started)
I only get 2 ~maybe~ 3 years to work on mine depending on where I get posted after this duty station.
Awesome awesome work, congratulations!
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The five year time frame was from the start date to the time it was completed and not the actual amount of time I spent working on it. It took that long because I learned as I went, I was also in tech full time for the first two years of the restoration, and the owners had health issues arise later on and needed to take a break in the restoration that lasted a year. I would think that it would still take well over a year working full time to bring another truck to that level of restoration. Even once a body is painted and back on the restored frame, it takes a
ton of time to get all of the parts detailed to a high enough level of quality to be able to install them. If the parts aren't available as reproductions, you have to search for original parts or make it yourself, as seen with the kick panel tag and rear bumper splash pans on this truck.
It took me a solid half week to figure out how to reproduce the body tag and nail down the process once I found what I needed to make it. And after making the first one and installing it, it got wet and the graphics streaked so I had to come up with another one and make it more durable. Finding the rivets to attach it took quite a few hours of driving around, searching the local fastener shops (had to order it-more waiting), and then finding the correct longer mandrel for the nut-sert tool because of the deeper depth of the threads in the riv-nut. I could have used shorter depth riv-nuts but the threads would have been visible and not have looked as correct. Of course there's no way I could have charged for all of that time and still have a clear conscience, so I only charged for the time it took to make the second tag and install it; about an hour. You don't make any money money that way, but I wouldn't feel right charging for nearly a whole week to research, make, and install a kick panel tag. And it would have driven me crazy to leave the old faded tag on there since it wouldn't be up to the standard of the rest of the truck. Maybe one day I'll start making and selling them to recoop some of the money I didn't make during the time it took to figure the process out.
The rough draft of the repro graphics and the original faded tag.
The first tag.
The second tag.
I hope that explains a little bit of the reason projects like these can take so long.
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