Welds dressed, surfaces trued and metal treated, so your painter starts from clean sound steel instead of covering someone else's shortcuts.
4.9 50 reviews from Cleveland customers
Rated with the BBBArc Wheels Welding LLC, since 2023
Black ownedIndependent shop on Cleveland's southeast side
Paint does not hide anything, it magnifies. A surface that looks acceptable in bare metal shows every wave and every low spot once there is gloss on it, and by then the money is spent. Most disappointing paint jobs are not paint problems, they are metal problems that were finished in a hurry and then buried.
This is the stage that decides how the finished car looks, and it is the stage most likely to get rushed because it is invisible when it is done well. A painter who receives properly finished metal produces a better job in less time, which is usually cheaper overall even though the prep cost more.
Welds dressed flush rather than ground hot, because grinding a hot weld distorts the panel around it and you have traded a bump for a wave.
Surfaces checked with a straightedge and a guide coat rather than by eye and by hand, since hands are more forgiving than gloss paint.
Rust treated properly at the source, not painted over. Anything left under primer keeps working.
Closed sections treated inside before they are sealed, which is the step that decides whether the car is still solid in eight years.
Bare metal protected between the metalwork finishing and the paint starting, because bare steel in an Ohio garage does not stay bare for long.
Some is normal. A skim over dressed welds is standard practice on any bodywork including factory work, and anyone telling you a good job uses none is selling something.
What is not honest is filler as a shaping tool. If the metal needs a quarter inch of filler to look right, the metal is not finished, and that repair will telegraph a crack along the edge of the filler within a few years as the panel flexes.
The test is simple. Metal finished so that a skim makes it perfect is right. Metal that needs building up is metal that needs more work, and we would rather do that work than hand you a panel that fails later.
We do not paint. Not a colour match, not a blend, not a rattle can touch up. This is a metal shop and the moment we start pretending otherwise you get a worse result than a real painter would give you.
No. Metal only, taken through to dressed, trued and treated, ready for your painter. Being clear about that saves everyone time.
A skim over dressed welds is normal and standard even on factory bodywork. Filler used to build shape is not, and it will telegraph as the panel flexes over the following years.
That is exactly what this is. Ask your painter what state they want the metal in and tell us, since preferences vary.
Not long in an Ohio garage. We seal bare steel before it leaves, but the shorter the gap between metalwork and paint the better the result.
Most quotes come back the same day the shop is open. Free, no obligation, and if it cannot be repaired you will hear that straight.
