Looking for Auto Body Techs? Get Involved with Your Local Vo-Tech School
Rather than try and steal techs from a competing shop (the model for any brand-new collision location), turn mechanics into body techs or train the local HVAC technicians to fix cars instead of furnaces, go where the interest in collision repair already exists.
Dollar Average Repair, Close Rate and Other Ways to Measure Your Body Shop’s Success
I’m firmly convinced that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Inside the Cheap, Rusty World of Used Car Body Shops in the 1970s
As a PB&E jobber in the 1970s, Mark Clark learned that rust ruled in used car body shops, and there were several degrees of cheap.
Clark’s Corner: A Culture of Safety
We’re certainly a tough bunch in collision repair, but even the toughest guy in your shop is still at the mercy of flying debris, dangerous overspray or solvent absorption.
Building the Perfect Body Shop Owner
What traits and skills does the perfect body shop owner have? We set out to find out and build that person block by block.
Clark’s Corner: Hulk Smash Water! Water Physics in the Shop
Poor-quality, moisture-laden compressed air has been a potential body shop problem since the day I started in 1970.
Clark’s Corner: Tips on Becoming a Great Public Speaker
Just like any other skill, from waving the spray gun to closing the customer, live-fire practice is the only way to get better at standing at the front of a room and delivering a speech.
Clark’s Corner: Pencil Selling
Understanding how to calculate your own results and setting out to measure your improvements is the surest road to continued profitability.
Vehicle Technology and Driverless Cars
I’m confident that our industry will adapt to the electronic-nanny revolution currently underway and will be ready to replace and recalibrate whichever devices the vehicle manufacturer incorporates to keep me safe.
Waterborne/Low-VOC: Where Are We Today?
Slow adoption of regulations and a changing of the guard in Washington have taken the spotlight off waterborne/low-VOC paint.
Custom Paint Lessons From My ’74 Suzuki TS-250 Scrambler
Last month, I talked about my first acrylic enamel complete on a ratty MGB. This month, I’ll tell you the story of my 1974 Suzuki TS-250 scrambler (a style currently called dual-sport) that was my first personal effort at a three-stage candy paint job.
Clark’s Corner: Three Spray Guns
Three DeVilbiss spray guns tell a tale of how I learned to paint cars.
