Any cheaper to paint a solid color?

Mistake Not...

Mistake Not...

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Mistake Not...
My plane needs paint. Factory paint job is now 35 years old and showing its age. Rather than do a multi color scheme (base + trim), I was thinking about getting it painted solid white and doing a partial wrap for accent / trim colors.

Since most of the labor cost is apparently in prep, this probably won't save me a lot of $$, but does anyone have a guess?

And, since the wrap wouldn't be anywhere near full fuselage, hopefully it would be less expensive as well.
 
I don't think it will save you much. Most of the quotes I had were independent of design (assuming it wasn't too complex). As you say most of the costs seem to be in the prep work.
 
stripes were included in the quote for my Bonanza....but I asked about a second belly color and that bumped things up $1,500.
 
Simply strip and polish. lots less paper required and any owner can do it.
 
I had my airplane painted last October. Like you, I had thoughts of painting it white and applying wrap for my scheme. There was so little difference in the quote that I went ahead with the painted scheme. With the paint only scheme, I could get it all done at the same time and same place. If I did the wrap scheme, I would have to take my airplane to a different airport and go through another period of down time while the wrap was being installed. It just was not worth the extra hassle and cost. I've been happy that I went the full paint scheme route.
 
Wraps can look pretty good initially, but over time the corners can come up around difficult curves...air intakes on the cowling, for instance. Look at a car wrap job that's a few years old; they can get pretty ratty. It seems that the colors don't have the depth of a good paint job either.
 
Pilawt said:
Just curious -- is there any significant difference in weight between paint and wrap?
Click to expand...
If you are adding a full wrap over existing paint, I would say yes. If you are just adding vinyl stripes over a solid white paint job, I would say no.

I also agree with SoCal RV Flyer, if you take care of your painted scheme, I think it will look nicer longer than vinyl. The only real advantage I could see with vinyl would be if you wanted some exotic graphic that could not be easily painted or if you get bored easily and want to change your scheme on a frequent basis.
 
Most places coat you a base color and one trim color. If you want different stripe colors, the price goes up.
 
thanks, y'all. I can live with base+1 trim if it's done well, and there's a lot to be said for getting it done all at once. but wow, those airplane wrap sites show some purty airplanes...
 
I'm in the middle of a pretty in-depth exterior refurb of my '67 C-172 right now. It's not a job for the faint of heart! Now, I wanted the convenience of doing most all of the work in my own 2-car garage, so I pulled all of the flying surfaces off to further that goal.
"Beware of scope creep!" I'm glad I did it, but it is much more of a "restoration" than a paint job. I've opened/cleaned/repaired both flaps, replaced one skin on each of the wings, patched an area that was cracking at the trailing edge rivets on one wing. Removed/cleaned/lubed all of the control cables. Bead blasted and epoxy primed all of the flap & aileron bellcranks. Repacked the flap actuator. Rebuilt both wing courtesy entry lights. Replaced the top cap on my rudder. Etc, etc, etc...

The good news: An updated estimate today puts me in less than $3k for all of the supplies!
The bad news: I've worked on it myself for about 3 months, and if I was paying somebody else to do it I would quite literally have gone broke by now...

But it's fun!

YMMV,

-Dana
 
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