New TV series American Restoration

[JLarkin]

Really good work slick.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

Nice work, Great attention to detail too. Do you do just restorations or do you do custom colors too?

 

[slick]

Thanks guys. I'm pretty picky on how my work comes out. If it looks like crap, I know my name will be on it so that won't work. I do it all except candy. Havn't gotten that down yet. Never really tried actually.

 

[Joeskustoms]

Slick I am doing the same exact bike for my lady but she wants non OE colors (light gray/cobalt blue). great work by the way brother!

 

[Motopecane]

so for the guy that said Antiques road show is more interesting.... I like that show but then you have to watch all the people with "sentimental" items worth a TON of money say that they wont sell them. Plus you have to look at a lot of ugly stuff before something cool comes along. Lastly bad production quality and that horrid theme song. :mrgreen: Not to bash ARS but it is a little bland sometimes.
+1 on the amazing restoration on that Schwinn I like to see good work that is not overpriced.

 

[skillsthebarber]

was that bike at the bike show at fremont park this summer?

 

[chevy263]

Cool bike Slick. I hope that show does well i just finished watching it also. That hopalong cassidy bike is wicked !

 

[slick]

Ya it was at the fremont park show in sac at cyclefest. Btw that show kicked tail!!! To be website friendly?? Mark is my best buddy from years gone back. Him and I are like the ratpack. I'm like Frank and he's Dean Martin. We tore up San Francisco together back when swing music was "in". Fun Times!!! Anyway, if you saw the bike in person you know how it looked up close. Bad part was, i don't even own a bike that clean and I did all of it????????? That sucks!!!!

 

[Rooski]

I have really close to 100 hours into the labor of body, paint, decals, clearing over the decals and full assembly afterwards.

Well, let's say Rick's guys put 100 hours total into the Hopalong. At $2500 labor, that's only $25 an hour (minus any other expenses like rechroming stuff, or hiring a biker buddy to make a seat pan). That's not very much for a small business with overhead.

If you charged your friend a third of that, you made about $8.33 an hour. Even if you did it in your garage with no business overhead, that's a low wage for such high quality work, and I certainly couldn't make ends meet with $8.33 an hour.

Regardless of the final quality of work, considering how labor intensive these projects can be, I can certainly see a small business needing to charge $2500 for such a task. It is a business, after all.

 

[slick]

In my eyes it isn't about the money. I am a one man operation and I do this stuff on the side. The biggest problem is finding someone willing to pay $2500 to restore a BICYCLE!!!!!! Most guys won't even want to pay that for bodywork on there rusted out old car? So if everyone thinks my labor is cheap and quality is awesome then step in line and take a number. Let's get your bikes restored professionally gang!

 

[cjlink]

I agree with what has been said about time and cost of restorations. I like to restore different things; my last project was an old 70ish garden tractor. I had over 100 hours in the body work and paint.

Regarding the show, the reason behind the restoration kind of touching. The guy and his dad had planned on restoring the bike as a father & son project, but they never got around to working on it. Isn't that the way that life is? It would have been a much more interesting show had they been able to show the father and son restoring the bike together.

I don't see how this show is going to make it, they don't actually show any of the restoration process; just the before and after with a few one liners in between commericals.

 

[dos cruiser]

They kept saying the restoration had to be right and I did notice the brake band not being on the bike, And if you are doing a Restoration and doing it right wouldn't you put the saddle bags, streamers, pistols and the hub caps on it? If you are doing it right. I also noticed that the Hop a long on the tank looked a little rough almost like they tried to do it by hand.

This show will be aired again on Monday at 9. I'd like to see more of the work also, but they did talk about some of the differant mediums for blasting.

 

[skillsthebarber]

I did see it at the bike show and it looked really good. you do nice work

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I don't know I think the show will make it, for a while at least, I mean Pawn stars is a big enough hit and all they do is haggle people about the price tell a little about the item and show a before and after just like American Restorations. I like the show although his work IMHO does not constitute $2500. Now if he'd gotten all the accessories, buffed the original paint to perfect condition instead of just re-spraying it, and polished it up then MAYBE.

Just my $0.02