Collision Blast

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Students Working in the Collision Industry While Attending College

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I held an interview with Zan Fine, a Butler Community College Collision Repair student, about his experience at Butler. In addition to attending college, Zan works part time for a body shop. I encourage students to work in the collision industry while in college. This is an excellent way to get experience and help the students apply what they’ve learned and help them excel in school and on the job. After a few weeks of school Zan spoke with Arlie at Arlie’s Paint Body & Glass in Marion, Kansas. Arlie was kind enough to welcome Zan and offer him a part time job, and now works on Friday’s and Saturday’s for him.
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Donnie – How did you get interested in collision repair?
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Zan – The first thing that sparked an interest was through a shadowing assignment that I did in high school, in my English class. I had the opportunity to spend a day at a body shop and I found that to be exciting and interesting. Later, I visited both programs at Butler (Auto Tech and Collision Repair) and decided that there were too much computer and electrical technology involved with auto tech. So I decided that collision repair was a better fit for me. I like the hands-on.
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Donnie – Now that you’ve been in the collision repair program for about a semester, what area of the industry do you favor?
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Zan – I think that I enjoy working with metal the best. I like to straighten metal and repair dents. However, I’m interested to get into the painting side of this.
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Donnie – Tell me why you decided to choose Butler Community College?
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Zan – I looked at some other programs and felt that therir class size were too big. Butler appeared to have a better atmosphere and everyone was easy to get along with. Dealing with bad attitudes is something I don’t want to deal with at this time.
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Donnie – What do you feel Collision repair has to offer you?
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Zan – I think this training offers a great deal of opportunities. I like learning and doing new things. I hate routine. This industry is constantly changing, which will keep it interesting. I also believe that I will always be able to find a job. Accidents are going to happen, which will require someone to repair them. However, you must be willing to work hard in this industry.
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Donnie – What advice would you give someone considering collision repair as a career?
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Zan – I think that if you like it–go for it. If you decide that you don’t want to be a technician later, there are many other careers to choose from. Shop estimator, insurance appraiser, or shop manager. I was not sure if I was going to like collision repair, but I’ve learned that I love this type of work. Again, this career is for the doers and shakers. If you’re not willing to work hard, it may not be for you.
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Donnie – I know that you’ve been working at Arlie’s part time. Can you tell us a little about that?
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Zan – It’s a great place to work and they have treated me excellent. It is a very clean shop, which make it nice. It has benefited me to work there because what I learn at school helps me apply it at work. The things that I learn at work give me a head start at school.
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Zan is definitely focused on his career and I believe that he will be among the best of the collision repair industry.
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Collision Repair Tip
Using a new razor blade to carefully scrape a run in paint will reduce sanding time.
Fact
Butler Community College was founded in 1927.
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Quote
“Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.”
~Henry Ford
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Question
What are crush zones designed to do when in an accident?
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Here is a video that Zan was asked to produced.

A Students Responce to Plastic Repair

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We ended the semester this year with plastic repair. I asked one of my students’s to write a short paper with his opinions of plastic repair and of the plastic repair course for this blog. Below is the student’s response.
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Plastics Repair
By Jon Abrahamsen

Although plastics repair seemed like one of are shorter classes I still feel that I have learned a lot in the class. I would not say plastic repair is my favorite subject so far, because I really enjoyed working with metal and repairing dents. I was actually really surprised by how well the adhesive repairs work; they can effectively repair some very major gouges and tears. The patch repair is a really cool thing that makes plastic repairs a lot more useful and can save many bumper covers from being replaced. In my opinion plastic repairs may not be the best choice, but I believe a shop can be very profitable in the field by repairing instead of replacing plastic parts.

Plastic welding is kind of an iffy type of repair. I actually did not really mind doing it. But, it is rather time consuming. One of the most time consuming aspects of plastic welding is identifying the type of plastic. On our bumper cover we even had the code for the plastic but the rod that was suggested was not the rod that stuck to are bumper cover the best. It took us about an hour of testing rods to determine which one worked the best. The welding only took about 45 minutes to an hour to complete, but it probably took us that long because we had such a large gash in our bumper cover. If someone had a lot of experience in plastics repair and could identify the plastics by experience and can cut down the repair time quite a bit, plastic welding could actually be very profitable.

Adhesives, in my opinion are the preferred method for plastic repair. Not only is it cost effective and a rather simple technique, many different repairs can be done at the same time, unlike plastic welding. Plastic welding requires the tech to focus all of their attention on the one thing they are repairing. The tech can start one repair with an adhesive; while they are waiting for that to dry they can start another repair. Also I feel that adhesive is a stronger repair then welding and will hold better under punishment.


I personally prefer adhesive repair over plastic welding. Although, I do not think that plastic welding is as bad as it is made out to be. The world is going to plastic. I believe that in 10 years we will have almost entirely plastic vehicles. So all repair methods should be explored. Skills in plastic repair may end up being more crucial then we might expect with all of the plastic parts being made.
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I would like commend Jon for taking the time to share his experience of plastic repair with us.

Collision Repair Tip
A heat inductor works great for removing seam sealers and body side moldings.
~Donnie Smith
Fact
A woman named Mary Anderson patented the windshield wiper in 1905.

Quote
Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
~Lou Holtz

Question
What year was the first driver’s side air bag installed to a vehicle?

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We did not have the time to produce a plastic repair video. However, here is a student-led video of Jon discussing Hammer and Dolly

‘Tis The Season

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We all know the holiday seasons are here, but there may be more seasons around us than we’re aware of.

I want to tell you a strange story that happened to me yesterday morning. I had just dropped my kids of at school and was on my way to Butler. A commercial on the radio caught my attention because it was talking about auto accidents. They were talking about it being deer hunting season, but it is also deer collision season. At that exact time a deer shot across the road, I slammed on my brakes and I knocked the deer off balance. Fortunately, I was not traveling too fast, the deer jumped up and ran off and there is no damage to my vehicle. So, maybe I owe Auto Craft a thank you for helping me be deer collision conscientious at that time.

After getting to work it started to snow, which led to more accidents throughout the day. I was watching the news this morning and I believe it said that there had been over 400 accidents called in, in Sedgwick County. That is a lot of work for the body shops, but please, drive careful and respect bad weather conditions.

Here are some tips to help you drive on the ice and snow, so that you can spend your holiday season safely at home with your family. Driving Tips

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Collision Repair Tip
Use a small butane torch to remove small dents from a body panel.
~Sam Moser – BCC Student

Fact
The Butler livestock judging team has 23 national contest victories this decade. Read More

Quote
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
~Henry Ford

Question
What is the first step before starting any collision repair?

BCC Collision Goes High Tech

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With the addition of a couple of new gadgets, the Butler Auto Body classroom is looking snazzy and keeping up with the latest technology.

A new smart board looks like the old white boards and even comes with “markers” and an “eraser”. One picks up the fake markers to activate the touch sensitive surface. This allows Mr. Smith to show us his mad doodle skills in the explanation of related concepts.

The new lamp looking thingy is a digital eye and a lamp that allows him to magnify and display on the smart board, any object he places under its digital lens which saves paper by preventing numerous copies to be made and passed around. Now everyone can see the magnified version on the smart board, and its large enough print for Mr. Smith to read.

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Collision Repair Tip 

“When painting aprons and rails use aluminum foil for masking wire hardnesses etc.

~LikeFactory – AutoBodyOnline

Quote

“Live as you will die tomorrow, but learn as if you will live forever.”

~Mahatma Ghandi