For Youth - Career Information - Repair and Maintenance

Automotive Painter

Are You Right for the Job?
All in a Day's Work
Apprenticeship

Tyler Dunn - Victoria, British Columbia - Bodyshop

Colour Vision -- Everyone knows that it sometimes pays to be fussy. In the autobody paint booth however, fussy is a way of life.

Along with an artful eye, it often takes generous helpings of both brute force and body filler to bring a crunched car back into relatively shapely condition.

The next step is where the rough work gets smoothed out. Bodywork must be sanded, primed and sanded again wet to ensure a silky smooth surface. Lights, glass and trim must be masked and taped, paint must be matched perfectly and applied with a light and steady hand. The last step, the clear coat, finally restores the glossy finish. It also accentuates any tiny mistake that was left uncorrected along the way. Fussiness counts.

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Are You Right for the Job?

The best way to become an automotive painter is to sign on in a bodyshop or car dealership as a detailer, says Tyler Dunn, a 26-year-old painter in a small bodyshop just outside Victoria, B.C. It was Tyler's pleasure, when he took just such a position in a large Victoria-area bodyshop three years ago, to make any car that passed into his care look as good as it possibly could.

It wasn't long before Tyler's skills won him the opportunity to work directly with the painters. This was an unusual jump. Novices normally work through a period as a "prepper painter," doing the first rough sand and the primer coat, before moving on to a formal painter apprenticeship. In British Columbia, those who distinguish themselves get an opportunity to go through a two-year, college-based program, followed by a five-year journeyman period that finally qualifies them as a ticketed painter. In the process, they jump in salary from a starting pay of, perhaps, $1 over minimum wage (as a detailer), to a journeyman rate of $15 to $20 per hour.

An automotive painter should:

• pay attention to detail

• have perfect colour vision

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All in a Day's Work:

In an average day, Tyler will be working on three cars that are in different stages of readiness. He'll be sanding primer on one car, masking and taping a second and spraying a third, going back to the first two cars while the third one is drying.

One of the toughest parts of the job is matching colours, Tyler says. Every car colour has four to six different variants and matching them can get more complex when paint has aged in the sun or has already been repainted with an imperfect match. Some paint companies can provide the right colour by photographing a car with a special digital camera and then submitting the image to a computerized analysis, but that technology is still highly specialized and extremely expensive, Tyler says.

Tyler's favourite part is the clear coat. While the last layer of clear paint shows up any mistakes, it's also final proof when everything is done right. In the best cases, "the car looks better than it did when it came off the assembly line." And on those days, Tyler knows why he chose this line of work. "I just stand back and say, 'Wow! I did that.'"

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Apprenticeship:

NB, ON, MB, SK, AB, NWT, BC

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