Veetail88

Veetail88

Well Known Member
Hi Folks,

I'm wondering how much dough I'll need to set aside for a paint job for my -8. Ball park number of course. I've tried painting before. No joy.

I'm thinking something along the lines of this beautiful job done by those guys in Russia.


By veetail88

I know it's complicated paint and it's going to run more than a solid color with a stripe or two.

I'd like a nice job. Probably from a recognized shop like Glo.

How much would I need to budget if I wanted them to do all the prep work on the fiberglass? Do they do that?

Thanks for your help.
 
Much Higher! For a complicated scheme and at a top of the line shop.

A normal shop with a good reputation with a basic scheme ~$8K

Mom and pop shop with a basic scheme ~$6K to $8K

Materials alone are high$
 
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I kept getting estimates of $10K and higher. One company was $14K (and this was 6 years ago!) That's why I did it myself...

paint19.jpg


Sorry if I scared you :eek:

Cheers
 
I painted mine myself and spent $5k. I would guess a job like the one you're looking at would cost nearer $15k.
447195105_4eDQP-L.jpg


Guy
 
What's with the tailwheel on the Russian RV? It doesn't appear to be a ski and I can't see skis on the mains???
 
Expensive! Not Really

Materials will be $3k to $5k depending on what you want. Labor will be $7k to $10k depending on what you want. It isn't cheap but in the scheme of things, not really that bad considering a nice paint job is the first thing everyone will see, they won't pay attention to that $40k panel or that $10k prop until they see that nice paint. How well do you want your airplane to look? :D
 
Thats so true

thats the truth of the matter. You can't get a show quality paint job for a daily driver price....nice thing about the daily driver or flyer price is that when that rock hits it and chips it (and it will ) you just touch it up and go on. that nice show paint job makes you sick to see that chip and you will loose sleep over it. When you wipe it down after mashing some bugs, thats all you will see is that darn chip, at least thats the way it is for me.

Rich
 
Wow, that Russian RV is incredible! I cannot imagine one of the major paint shops for aircraft doing that for anything less than $15k. I'm on a huge budget, so I'm doing mine myself. I've got all the $$ spent and it's at about $2,500. If it turns out nice I'll post pictures in a couple weeks! :D
 
I'm about to pick mine up from the paint shop, and the total cost is almost $9k for a basic color scheme (three colors, a couple stripes, and 12-inch numbers). It is yellow and red, both of which add some cost (maybe $500-1000) for the pigment compared to whites and the like. I also spent a bit extra (I think about $700 of the total) on getting them to do a bit of the fiberglass filling (I spent a lot of time myself, but finally ran out of time and patience). I got a similar estimate from GLO about a year ago (but decided to go more local). So, my guesstimate is that for a reputable shop, minimum complexity, not white or red, and with no fiberglass touchup, I would have spent about $7k at a minimum. I would agree with the other posters that the paint job on the plane you show is probably more like $15k because of the masking complexity. You can save some of that if you use vinyl applications for the complex parts (provided they are small enough and don't wrap around tight complex curves), but in reality the vinyl is pretty expensive for large designs anyway.

I'm guessing (and really guessing here) that IF you could get a shop to do all the fiberglass prep work, it would cost you at least a couple extra thousand, maybe much more. And it depends on whether you mean both fitting the fiberglass and pinhole filling, or just the latter. If you're really interested in going this route, call your painter and talk to him/her before you get started. I also have heard of folks going to the local autobody shop and getting some fiberglass prep work done, but if you do this, be sure that they use the proper epoxy etc. They are used to working with poly stuff in most cases, not epoxy. They would probably do a fine job with epoxy as well but need to make sure that it is compatible with your fiberglass parts. There are a couple older threads discussing the compatibility problem.

Hope this adds another data point to your calculations.

greg

p.s. red and yellow works great as it matches bug juice colors so one doesn't have to clean up the bugs as often!:D
 
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Paint$

Just got my 6A out of paint, a reputable shop in the north east. Outstanding quality. www.paintaircraft.com, complex scheme, Imron, lot's of red @ $900. a gallon. fiberglass was ready to paint, all pin holes filled. I did the dissambly and assembly. Can be seen on Barnstormers (2 Rv's for sale). price $10K.
Raw fiberglass, as received from Van,s could add as much as 40hrs. to the job, @ $50. per hour shop rate, you do the math!
As previously mentioned, the first thing you see on an RV is the paint, you may have a "Lindy winning " airplane with so so paint, and you have a so so airplane.
IMHO.
Dick
 
It is a ski

I guess it's cold there!


By veetail88

Thanks for the input folks.

I intend this airplane to be a flyer, not necessarily a show plane, but I do want it to look nice. I have a very small dent in my 2 year old TL that is right next to the drivers door handle that I see every time I get in and it drives me nuts. The dent happens to be right on a beam and the dent guys weren't able to get it out. AAaaarrrrrgggggg.

I suppose a chip in pretty airplane paint will have the same effect on me, but whatcha gonna do?

With price estimates that high, I think I'll also seriously talk with a friend of mine that owns a batch of autobody shops in northern Illinois. I'd discussed it with him before, but I'm a bid nervous about a shop that has no experience with aircraft. I suppose if I'm very involved with the process, get lots of data from you good folks about materials and proceedures, and work with them on it, that we could probably get good results that way as well.
 
N661DJ said:
$900. a gallon.
Click to expand...

Wow.

I just painted a new rudder/VS on my RV-6 with checkboard and I used Kirker base/clear. Turned out really nice.

A gallon of red is $65.00.

I had to use a quart of Nason gold base, and the quart of Nason cost more than the Kirker primer, the gallon of blue, the gallon of clear, and the hardeners and activators.

I love this paint, in fact it sprays better than Dupont or PPG and so far has been very durable. A friend of mine painted a RV-3 with Kirker and did the whole job for under $600 in materials using Kirker. Unfortunately the airplane crashed, but we were surprised at how well the paint held up over the damage.

I get Kirker from here: http://www.smartshoppersinc.com/kirker/kirker1.html
 
Greg Arehart said:
...p.s. red and yellow works great as it matches bug juice colors so one doesn't have to clean up the bugs as often!:D
Click to expand...

I can confirm that red and yellow are very expensive. I bought my paint 7-8 years ago and you could hear the sucking sound when I was told the price. :eek:

Greg, I think your going to be disappointed if you think the bugs won't show on red and yellow. Almost 100% of the bugs I hit are just black splotches on the front of my -8. (you can see pictures of it in the classifieds... FS: 2003 RV-8). I have to wipe the bugs off after almost every flight.

Karl
 
Karl,

You're just not hitting big enough bugs! Big bugs have higher volume/surface area, thus there is less black and more yellow and red in big bugs than little ones. I prefer grasshoppers, dragonflies, etc. to gnats and mosquitos.:D

greg
 
Bugs

Greg I notice that you said Grasshoppers. I don't know about the grasshoppers where you live, but the Grasshoppers in my neck of the woods don't get much more than 4 feet off the ground.....You haven't been flying around Plant City, FL or Lakeland, FL around the Sun-n-Fun area ?????? They have been looking for a guy buzzing the hay fields and chasing cows in the area.....Better keep it above the 500' hard deck. They are watching you LMAO

Rich
 
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