Behind the paint booth

As a marketer for Rihm Family Companies, I can often be found sitting at a desk. But recently I decided to step away from my desk chair and instead step into our Coon Rapids body shop’s paint booth with one of Rihm’s resident artists, Greg, who has over 35 years of experience performing paint work on vehicles. I wanted to take the chance to learn for myself, and our customers, about what really makes a successful vehicle paint job, and what makes Rihm’s painters so great. In just the first few minutes with Greg, I already started to see just how much prep work and skill goes into creating a successful paint job. This was demonstrated by how Greg had spent hours just prepping for, what he called, a basic paint job, and that did not include the fact that any body work the truck needed had to be completed before a painter even touches the truck. My biggest takeaway from my experience learning about the vehicle paint process from Greg, and from previously trying a paint booth simulator myself, was that to be a talented vehicle painter you really need a lot of patience. I certainly don’t have that, so I suppose I won’t be leaving the marketing department to join the body shop anytime soon.

Greg also made it clear to me that you don’t learn how to be a good auto/truck body painter overnight. He spent years learning techniques from other professionals and adapting his own style. That being said, he really wanted me to stress to everyone reading this article that it does matter where you bring a truck for paintwork. The painter’s experience and use of good paint can both make a big impact on how a truck’s final paintwork turns out. Even if you have a good painter but cheap paint is used, the paint can potentially start looking dried out soon after being applied, then you would need to pay another shop to strip the entire truck and start over. However, at our Rihm Kenworth body shop, we have the best of both worlds with over 50 years of combined painter experience and the exclusive use of Axalta paint. This means that you can trust that any paintwork you have our Rihm artists do will get done right the first time