youse all raise some good points....
from the other side of the fence ..(or pacific in my case) as a bodyman for a number of years, people like this also get burnt by people who see what they want , the bodyman commits to the project, but the owner doesn't see how much time is going in to project. take any one of you,-- you start out doing a 2 hr job , but the reality is your still doing that part some 5 hours later.
could you justify that to a customer?
so the body man trys to be realistic enough to see the reality from his customer and his own financial reality.. sadly often the two realities don't meet. so as things start going downhill there is the 'you pay X amount upfront then we do part payments along the way' ...
that's usually the first sign of previous bad goodwill and possibly someone who is financially struggling to keep a dream alive
then when the whole lot turns pear shaped, the apparent failure of self takes over the mindset - some just run away from their responsibilities, quite often because they cant even face themselves
id like to add that I hate any sort of rip of merchant , and seeing folks getting ripped off makes me mad...
I too worked for a guy - amazing body man gas welded a flat sheet into a 1950's rover rear door them hammered and filed his way to a double reverse curve , after about 3 days he had a huge howly bag and threw the door across the workshop-- all because he just could not pick out small weld hollow to completely file the door with no filler !! in the early 1980's the hourly rate here was $30 ... I could never understand the whys of it all ,, but got to just over $700 ! and he still had to weld the inner structure back in paint and assemble that door.. very clever man but really an 8 hour job still with great result with a bit of filler needless to say his business closed and I was out of a job....
I learned some great stuff off that guy, some of them was to be frugal with my time, and a little bit of filler was ok
just thought id share some past experiences..
not that I was one these rip off merchants !
Crate was thinking.....