FORT SILL, Okla. -- When Joe Dees gets around to giving "Betty" a new paint job, he will give her back the good looks she flaunted off the assembly line: a body shade Volkswagen called Brilliant Blue and a shiny new white roof.
That work can also happen at the Fort Sill Auto Skills Center. Two volunteers teach a paint and body class required to comply with Environmental Protection Agency standards for chemical emissions. The two-day, eight-hour class costs students $35. Students must also purchase their own respirator, a requirement to use the equipment in the paint booth.
Todd Hall and Lee Alexander, class instructors, both come with a background working on cars. Hall said teaching the class provides him a way to give back to the Army, which he retired from active duty and now works for in civil service.
"Since starting this class about 14 months ago, Fort Sill's paint booths have been operating nonstop," said Hall.
His credentials for teaching the class consist of 21 years Army teaching experience, his own completion of a paint and body school and an auto painting business he started nearly 10 years.
"Teaching Soldiers how to paint their own vehicles can save them a ton of money," he said. "We show students how they can paint inexpensively so they don't have to pay a high-dollar painter downtown to make their vehicle look nice."
He added auto painters charge an average of about $4,000 per vehicle. Someone who completes the class can do the same job for about $650. That's a figure more in line with the value of vehicles most people want to paint. He calls these "A2B" cars, as in Point A to Point B or the vehicles people drive primarily to and from home and work.
At a minimum, students must complete the EPA training to use the paint booth. Most, however, go through the entire bodywork and paint class.
Day 1, the instructors teach students bodywork and dent repair. Hall donated several old fenders and beats them up before assigning one per student. Students then smooth out the dents and put a primer coat on the fender. He tells them at the end of the four-hour class he wants to see perfect fenders they could bolt back onto his car.
Day 2, focuses on the different paints students can use. One paint uses a two-step process where a painter applies a base coat then follows up with clear coats that build up the shiny finish.
The other paint contains both the base and finish products in one coat. Though a less expensive product, Hall showed a fender he painted and said the students could use the one-step paint.
"With no paint or auto body repair experience, in eight hours, students are turning out some pretty good stuff," said Hall.
Alexander, who is resurrecting a 1971 Mustang into a work of art, took Hall's class and agreed to stay on and help teach.
"Taking the class helped me clarify a lot of questions I had regarding painting, such as the different types of paint available, how to mix them and what is the shelf life of paint," he said.
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