[NYTOM]

Painting a 6,7 or 9 series RV, roughly how much paint did you need. Not taking into consideration extra partially used quarts for colored strips etc, just a basic one color finish with a primer underneath.
Just read a blog by a fellow doing a 8 and his photos for his paint delivery show a full pallet of what looks like enough supplies to paint a whole fleet and I'm a little freaked.
I don't want anymore paint than is necessary. How much did you actually need?

 

[Kyle Boatright]

I've never used base/clear, so can't comment on that. On a 4,6,7,8,9, the most efficient painters using "friendly" colors might get away with 2 gallons of paint. More likely would be 3, and some of us <ahem> used closer to 4 with a lot of that ending up sanded off.

You might pick your paint type of choice and look at their specifications to see how much coverage you'll get from a gallon of paint, then extrapolate from there. Remember, you'll waste some paint, because you always mix up too much paint, unless you mix too little, in which case you'll need to mix more, some of which will be excess to your immediate needs.

 

[bret]

Are you painting as you go? I would, and did. Buy one gallon at a time, usually that makes two gallons to shoot. my total with base clear and two colors and two shadow highlights was three gallons........just an estimate, maybe four. did it over three years. 5,000.00 in paint stuff. plan on mistakes and do overs if this is not your profession

 

[NYTOM]

Are you painting as you go? I would, and did. Buy one gallon at a time, usually that makes two gallons to shoot. my total with base clear and two colors and two shadow highlights was three gallons........just an estimate, maybe four. did it over three years. 5,000.00 in paint stuff. plan on mistakes and do overs if this is not your profession

Three gallons seems about right but the $5000 bucks is really freaking me out.
But I guess it really isn't that much in the whole scheme of things.
Thanks for the replies.

 

[rvbuilder2002]

Three gallons seems about right but the $5000 bucks is really freaking me out.
But I guess it really isn't that much in the whole scheme of things.
Thanks for the replies.

Doesn't have to cost that much... all depends on what you desire for a final finish.

I painted my RV-6A 1.5 years ago for about $1200 (cost for all materials, tape, etc.).
I used a single stage polyurethane from PPG that is very similar to Imron called Delfleet Essential. It is now used by a lot of fleet operators in our area from Ag operations to Columbia Helicopters.

For my 6A I used about 3 gallons total, but as mentioned already, it somewhat depends on the cover ability of the colors you are using.

It is single stage but can be clear coated. Is pretty easy to spray compared to some of the systems I have used. It has a pretty large color pallet but I learned first hand that the single stage metalics are less forgiving. All in all I am happy with how it turned out.

If you desire to use some of the popular paint colors that contain pearl, etc, and/or the ability to wet sand and cut/buff to a perfect gloss then you should go the more expensive (two stage system) route, though it can still be done for less than $5000

 

[Kyle Boatright]

Three gallons seems about right but the $5000 bucks is really freaking me out.
But I guess it really isn't that much in the whole scheme of things.
Thanks for the replies.

You don't have to spend that much. I'm starting to come around to the idea of off-brand paints sold through large scale distributors and/or mail-order. I'm talking Summit Racing and Kirker paints.

I've been painting the interior of my -10 project using Southern Polyurethanes' Epoxy primer and Kirker's single stage urethane. The paint flows out very well. On fiberglass, I've been using the Southern Polyurethanes epoxy primer and Summit Racing's high build urethane primer.

For reference, two sprayable gallons of the epoxy primer was ~$200. A sprayable gallon of the Kirker paint is <$100, and the high build Summit urethane primer was also <$100 for a sprayable gallon.

The products spray well. The only question I have is longevity, but since our airplanes are in the hangar most of the time, I don't see fading as a likely problem.