Cheap paint job

If you are going to use IMRON, you MUST, REPEAT, MUST wear full body
protection with the minimum of a pressure hood.
Spraying IMRON in an enclosed area without this protection will KILL you.
IMRON and others paints of this family contain cyanide which is absorbed
through the exposed skin.
This is very serious stuff and requires knowledge, respect and
understanding of the material.

Most of the costs of painting is the prep work!!

If you dont mind flying a ugly airplane, start stripping it yourself a
piece at a time.
It can be a flying project. One wing per weekend.
If you do this, you are going to need the correct stripper to do a good
job.
Don't go to Home Depot to get stripper, it doesn't work worth Sh$t. Go
to the airplane store and get real stripper or go to some of the quality
automotive paint stores and get stripper that will work with the paints
like Imron.
As always, you will want to power wash the plane after each stripping as
stripping stuff will corrode if left in the seams.

When your finished, you may like the look of a shinny aluminum airplane!

Or have someone paint it at that point.

Dave


jsmith wrote:
If you are going to use IMRON, you MUST, REPEAT, MUST wear full body
protection with the minimum of a pressure hood.
Spraying IMRON in an enclosed area without this protection will KILL you.
IMRON and others paints of this family contain cyanide which is absorbed
through the exposed skin.
This is very serious stuff and requires knowledge, respect and
understanding of the material.

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:54:38 -0600, Paul Folbrecht
wrote:

The paint shop nearest me wants $7K to do a 152 (2 colors). I can't
justify that for a $20K bird; the current paint isn't that bad. Is
there any way at all to get a real paint job done for, say, closer to
half that??

Paul -

Painting an aircraft is not difficult, but requires a lot of
speciality stuff that 99% of us don't have access. Nor is it cost
effective to acquire and assemble the material.

I'd recommend shopping the job around and having the paint done by
professional. It would be a shame to spend a few $K on your own
paintjob only to have it turn out poorly, or start peeling 1-2 years
later. Alternatively - you might be able to talk a paint shop into
doing a reduced rate if you do all the prep work in their shop under
their guidance.

Also, $7k seems high for a 152. I bet you can get $5k if you shop it
around.

Other concerns with doing the job yourself:
1. Stripping and prepping the aircraft - what will you do with the
waste? Airports and the EPA are serious about this stuff.

2. Do you have an HVLP gun with breathing rig? Imron can kill you if
you don't have a good O2 supply. Most setups go for about $1k.

3. Do you have a paint booth/clean room for the painting? How will
you keep bugs/dirt off of the paint while drying? If not - how will
you keep overspray off of the rest of the airport? This is a non
trivial concern. You definitely do NOT want to ruin a $20k paintjob
on the 421 in the hangar next to yours!

-Nathan

Is there any way at all to get a real paint job done for, say,
closer to half that??

http://www.menaaircraftpainting.com/ painted the local club's Cessnas
for about $3,800 each. The results were acceptable, though they took
longer than promised.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

When was that? Today they quoted me $5000 for a 152.

Dan Luke wrote:

Is there any way at all to get a real paint job done for, say,
closer to half that??


http://www.menaaircraftpainting.com/ painted the local club's Cessnas
for about $3,800 each. The results were acceptable, though they took
longer than promised.

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote:
When was that? Today they quoted me $5000 for a 152.

Two years ago, a 3-plane deal. Two 172s and a 152.

Paul,

If the existing paint isn't too bad you can get a "scratch and sniff" (aka
sand and paint) job for substantially less than a regular strip and paint.
Not all shops will do this, you'll need to make a few calls. Also, you get
more or less what you pay for, a sand and paint is only as good as the
underlying surface condition. If your existing paint is starting to flake,
then your new paint will probably flake off as well (because it's riding on
the existing paint). Best of luck,

mark

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
...
The paint shop nearest me wants $7K to do a 152 (2 colors). I can't
justify that for a $20K bird; the current paint isn't that bad. Is
there any way at all to get a real paint job done for, say, closer to
half that??

Mark Astley wrote:

If the existing paint isn't too bad you can get a "scratch and sniff" (aka
sand and paint) job for substantially less than a regular strip and paint.
Not all shops will do this, you'll need to make a few calls.

Not only that, but not all airframes are going to be happy with extra
paint. The stabilator on my PA24 wouldn't balance after the Vne mod was
installed because there was too much paint, and rumor has it that it can
be an issue with some Bonanzas as well.

Then there's the 172 we picked up from the paint shop a few weeks back
with unpainted control surfaces (or rather, stripped after painted)
because they wouldn't balance properly with _any_ paint on them....

Surprisingly heavy stuff, paint...

Chris Kennedy wrote:

Surprisingly heavy stuff, paint...

During WWII, they put a standard Navy paint job on a captured Japanese Zero and
couldn't get it off the ground.

George Patterson
This marriage is off to a shaky start. The groom just asked the band to
play "Your cheatin' heart", and the bride just requested "Don't come home
a'drinkin' with lovin' on your mind".

Nothing better than shiny aluminum!
Reduces weight, too!