Panel Beater Profile
I left school at Year 11 in 1994 and I was interested in doing a trade. My dad was working at a panel shop so I went down there one day just to have a look and give him a hand. They wanted to give me an apprenticeship almost straight away. I guess I was a bit shocked but it looked pretty good, so I said, "Alright, I'll give it a go".
Once I got into it, I was really keen to do as well as possible. I did my trade at TAFE in two years instead of three. I've been here ever since, and I've really enjoyed it.
The work I do
In panel beating at the moment everything is changing. There is always something new coming out. New cars are much rounder and panel shapes and sizes are increasingly variable. Materials that cars are made from are also changing. More and more cars have plastic panels and fibre-glass body kits. This all makes the car more difficult to repair. If you can't fix the damage you may have to cut it out, send it to a specialist welder or replace complete panels, which can be quite expensive.
When a car comes in to the workshop all smashed up, you spend a fair bit of time looking at it. You need to work out where and how it has been hit so that you can pull it back from there. The assemblers pull the car apart and strip the panels because you can't control the metal with the primer on it. Then you pull out the dents from where it's been hit and straighten the body so it matches the manufacturer's specifications for the car.
Then the paint shop takes over. We'd probably do about four or five cars a day. The more skills and experience you have, the less time you spend on the job. That does not mean that you take short cuts. It just means that you learn how to do it properly and much faster.
My workplace
The current trend is towards modern, clean, environmentally friendly workshops. We pride ourselves on keeping it up to standard. I have always believed that an indicator of a good tradesperson is that their hands may be a bit dirty but the rest of them will be spotlessly clean. If you find a guy covered in grease from head to foot, then he's actually working at getting dirty.
There are opportunities for panel beaters in other areas as well. A guy that I went through trade school with has just gone into spare parts. And the manager here started out as an apprentice and now he's managing the whole repair process, dealing with customers and giving quotes. You need to have first hand knowledge to do a job like that.
Education and training
I did my Certificate III in Automotive Body Repairs over three years
- but I'm still training now. Some people start their studies with a VET
in Schools programme at high school or some people start with a traineeship
(Certificate II).
>> course/qualification
Why I love this industry
A panel beater with limited experience will take home between $750-800 a week. A more experienced panel beater could earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year. This varies depending on ability and experience etc, although a good panel beater should be taking home that kind of money. But you have to start at the bottom. The better you are at your job, the more you can earn.
There is a real shortage of young people wanting to be apprentices today. Technology is changing this industry at such a fast rate that young people coming in need to realise that it will keep changing. They must be prepared like I am, to be retrained regularly throughout their working life.