On Thursday, October 25, 2018 at 9:25:48 AM UTC-4, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Thursday, October 25, 2018 at 7:03:44 AM UTC-6, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 8:39:19 PM UTC-4, Nick Kennedy wrote:
27K to 35K for a refinish?!
Jeez the Fleet is in trouble, who's got that kind of money?

Ya think?
That is why I have helped one local club to get up to speed on refinishing their ships as club projects. They are on their third project this year..
Our club refinished our '21 a few years ago..
Another club in our area is going to give it a shot this year with support from P3 and myself.
UH

One club member (ACA) expressed this as a rewarding club experience at the Focus on Clubs luncheon a couple of SSA Conventions ago. Other clubs have done similar projects. I recall one (SSB) that polished a 1-34 to gain a bunch of payload. Another (TBSS) where, at one time, the entire fleet was insurance salvage returned to service. And others that have built facilities. I would suggest that projects that put gliders and keep gliders in the air are the best as club activities.

Frank Whiteley

ACA Chief Refinishing Officer here... A lot of us agree that refinishing and restoring our gliders is one of the best team-building exercises out there. Over the years the enthusiasm ebbs and flows, but there are two constants.

One, you need a prime motivator. Back in the day, ACA had Jack Greene. You could bring in a 1-26 that had been balled up to the size of a VW Bug, and 6 months later a 1-26 would emerge (more or less :-))

20 years ago one of our guys caught the bug and refinished our 1-26 and 2-33 in matching livery.

Second, you need a shop. The biggest hurdle for a while was the lack of a consistent workspace. We migrated from garage to barn to shed. Finally, two years back we started renting a shop at the airport, and we now have the infrastructure we need.

In the last 7 or so years we've refinished and restored a Grob Twin Astir, LS4, 2-33 fuselage, Komet Trailer (now far and away the nicest Komet in the country), and started on an LS3. Also, we've done way more preventative maintenance than we did in the past. I'd say over 50 members have had their hands in various parts of this work.

P3