9/28/10 Feels Good!

Finally back to painting, its been a while with the move but I final was able to get in the booth and paint. Pearl white Hayabusa with ghosted graphics. I laid out the Caddy pearl white at the Schaumburg location rite before we made the move.

Now I have prepped the parts and did the ghosted graphics in a gold white pearl mix.

Unmasked you can barely see the graphics 

Now for several deep layers of clear

9/27/10 Update

We (M&B Autobody) have been located in Schaumburg, IL for ten years now, our lease has come to a end. The Schaumburg location has been good to us, but with the economy and the fact that there are over 30 shops in a 4 mile radius I felt it was time to shift directions and make a change and focuss on what I enjoy doing.

I'll let you in on something, dealer referral and work is not what its cracked up to be, don't get me wrong, if I was a Jerry Watron, Jerry owns Americas Autobody, a dealer referral driven business and he thrives on that stuff, not me. I have always been a tech, not so great on the business end of things and being a tech and not a business man I just don't like to many hands in my pocket and to do dealer work you have to give discounts, rebates, free work, doughnuts, etc etc.

So with that being said,

We have officially MOVED

A good freind lent me his trailer, I loaded and unloaded it a total of 8 times!

Rick from AkzoNobel moved our second paint system, that was a great help.

Chris from Fair Towing helped with the frame rack and lift. Even our Nikki pitched in for a night of dusty box moving. I wont do it again, maybe one more time to the back of our property when that comes along.

Now for the fun stuff, I helped Larry from VooDoo Larry Customs move his shop, for two days I got to know Larry and we talked a lot about business, cars and our love to work with our hands.

He then asked if I could pick up his car (VooDoo Idol) from the bodyshop he has been using so he could get it ready for a show in Long Beach California, I did. When we arrived at the shop the car wasn’t ready and we were asked to come back in the morning. This car was scheduled to go to the trim shop and then ship to California, but the bodyshop had run behind schedule putting Larry in a bad spot. So were arrived on the next morning to pick it up and it was ready but I could see the disappointment in Larry’s face, the car wasn’t close to what he had vision. I offered to fix it and we moved it to my shop. So the work started and I ended up painting everything except the hood and roof with only four days till it shipped.

Car came out great, it shipped and VooDoo Larry and VooDoo Idol made it to Long Beach California for Autorama.

Good things are happening.
More to come, I will keep you posted!

9/01/10 Its about that time

Well I've been keeping this quite but I think its about time for everyone to know what our intentions are for M&B Auto Body. Melissa and I have been going back and forth on closing the shop and moving on with our lives. I even took on a job with a chain of collision repair shops and probably would still be with them if they could have straighten out the pay situation. We both have come to a decision to continue on with M&B but to move into a different direction. I have always enjoyed doing custom work, never really pursued it full time but always kept taking that work in and enjoyed doing it, so we are going to focus on that and not the collision work, we will still do collision until we no longer need it to support us.

With this decision finally made and our lease is up at the Schaumburg location we are going to move the shop! I have already located an excellent location for what we want to do and made the deal on it Monday and took possession yesterday.

Now for the fun, I have moved my shop before (over ten years ago) and it wasn't easy. This time I am fortunate that the new location already has a booth up and ready for work so I won't have to dis-assemble and move the booth at this location. All our equipment and stock should be easy to move with the help of a good friend and the use of my tow truck and two trailers.

I spent the last two days helping Larry at VooDoo Larry Customs move vehicles and equipment from his shop here in Schaumburg to his new location in Elk Grove Village and in this process struck a deal to work with him on several projects he has in his shop, its a start in the right direction and I'm excited to get back to doing what I enjoy doing, Customs.

This is the Original Hot Rod Lincoln from the Song HOT ROD LINCOLN

by Charlie Ryan & The Livingston Brothers

Larry is doing a restoration for Pebble Beach for its current owner. This vehicle has history, can you imagine who has touched it over the years.

This was a honer to move the Hot Rod Linclon and to know that I was in posession of it for a shot period of History.