Hi OP, good question, and some very thoughtful and informative answers. Here are my thoughts:
* Every good paint job is done by someone who started out not knowing much about it. We all learned.
* Inexperienced painters will make mistakes - sometimes wasting hundreds or thousand of $ and lots of time. But many errors can be (mostly) corrected.
* Do you want an okay job, good job, really nice, or show? Will you be happy with the same answer in 5 years?
* Corvette's are not a real super 'starter' project unless you're willing to invest the time (lots of it) to understand the nuances of a glass body, the proper techniques, etc., etc.
* "When you buy quality, you only wince once"

The following thread, which I did when we bought our first C7, will give you some things to think about. Hope it helps, and best of luck! Paul
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ange-peel.html

 

Thanks Paul, I'm really starting to lean towards the DIY stuff now. I am reading Walt Thurn's "How to Restore Your C3 Corvette" and it looks doable in chunks. A full strip and respray might be a bit much for me all at once, but chunks look doable. This is my first car/track car/engineering test mule, and hopefully a forever car, so I have no major concerns about resale value. I think the biggest factor for me deciding to DIY is the fact that this IS my daily driver when there's no snow on the ground and I feel like if I blow $5,000 in addition to all my prep time, I'm never going to drive again. That first rock chip would probably keep me in my room for a week crying, whereas if I do it, I can get exactly the quality I want and put in just as much time as I want/need. I'm basically just looking for something that covers all the fiberglass anyway, so I think a full send might be in order.

 

Thanks everybody for the great information. I had no idea rates were so high across the country. This has been a real eye-opener for me. I'm more used to the hot rodding side of this where things will either work or they won't. You'll make more power or less power, you will be able to handle more cornering force or less, but this painting stuff sounds like it's all shades of grays (or whites in my case). You can have so many different levels of quality with no good metric for comparison. I think I'd better get educated and practice a little bit (My dad has a bumper for his truck he needs painted that he's willing to let me practice on) and then use Doorgunner's suggestion of starting on the headlights, then the hood, then the T-tops, and so on. Best case scenario, I decide I love painting and get out pretty scot free, worst case I paint the headlights and the hood and then have to save up do it professionally. Being that I already have all the equipment needed sans the actual paint, I think I just gonna send it..

 

Well......you pretty much set the decision point for you. Which in know way applies to anyone else. People spend outrageous amounts of money on hobbies, or even everyday items, that in NO WAY makes "common sense". It has nothing to do with "common sense". It has to do with what we, free Americans, decide to do with the money we earn in our lives. This should be pretty clear,.....but at times on many forums, one person directly, or indirectly, implies that what they think is right, should apply to everyone, and if not, you are a moron. WRONG. Spending $50,000 to restore a rubber bumper C3 Corvette is a decision about whether one guy finds that a legitimate use of his OWN money.......its not about what some other jackass would pay for the same car. Pretty simple.

I am even guilty of this improper thought when I see someone spend $97.000 on a 68 Corvette at Mecum yesterday for a car he will most likely never drive, and sit in a garage for years.......and I get criticized for spending $12,000 on a paint job on my 77 Corvette I bought for $9000. It seems really stupid to spend that outrageous number of $97,000 on something will never be used,......BUT, its that guys money.....not mine.

So.....bottom line, if you have a Corvette you are restoring, and love it and it is valuable to you, and you have the money to make it the car you want.....spend as much as you can. Don't listen to these guys who try to assign some "resale value" as the criteria for your decisions. I don't.

 

Why are you directing this to me?????? EVERYTHING I SAID WAS ALL ABOUT ME that's why I consistently said I,I,amd I again.......This is MY OPINION based ON MY EXPERIENCES. Yes this is a forum where people share THEIR experiences like I SHARED MINE.

I'm NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING.

If I wanted to say that something was "wrong" I would just say it.

Personally, I could care less how much someone chooses to spend of THEIR MONEY on WHATEVER THEY CHOOSE.

DON"T accuse me of what you think I MIGHT be implying.

PRETTY SIMPLE

 

Sorry man, not trying to stir up anything.....but, my comments apply to the OP subject matter on cost of a paint job, and then comments related to value of the car. You are absolutely correct that you were speaking for yourself, and that's what I said about your comment. You made your decision, and that is the point I made.

 

Your comments were directed to me, and I still do not understand why you directed them specifically to me.....??????????

 

Unfortunately, the price of paint has gone way up, not to mention supplies. Back in '05 I paid $7 a quart for Rustoleum at Home Depot. Today that same quart is $21. So my $50 paint job back then, would cost you about $150 today, including wet/dry paper and compounds. But still lookin' good after 15 years.

 

Man, that's crazy. Any idea why the prices are rising so quickly?

 

Price is cheap. Different parts of the country have different labor rates.

 

Prep it right, then have it wrapped (GASP! I know, an abomination!). Cheaper than paint, un-doable, save your money and later you have it painted or learn how to do it yourself.

Probably spend $2000-2$500 to have it wrapped. Looks nice and you don't worry about driving it anywhere.

Just an option for you.

 

With so many paint threads on this forum I have found it is almost like asking: 'What should I expect to pay for a wedding'? The options are numerous and you can go as big and nice as you want or as cheap and maybe not so nice.... But to ask what it 'should' cost is almost an impossible question for anyone to agree on. You have to know exactly what you want.

 

Young Vette

Check out prices on Automotive Art base and SPI clearcoat. You will be surprised. Excellent quality stuff. A friend uses these products and SPI expoxy on six figure restomods. I have painted a couple of vehicles with these products.
A good quality gun (Iwata) really helps, too!

VS

 

Young Vette, just understand this is not rocket science and any good DIY'er can paint a car. There is a ton of information out there on the internet and people on this forum that will assist in answering your questions.

Another good source of information is on http://autobodystore.com/forum/forum.php

I say go for it, start out by running down to the local junk yard and grab a hood or fender. Sand, prep, shoot and buff it out. Start out with a single stage solid color and go from there. You might surprise yourself, all of us at some point did something for the first time.

 

strip it. do the body work. primer. paint? it stays sticky a long time. and a long distance. i shot my 34 hatteras outside in a boat yard. guy nearly 100 yards away showed me the little white paint drops all over his truck. he was not happy. pull off every piece of chrome and give Maaco 500 bucks.

 

How long should a wrap last? If the car isn't garaged most of the time, exposed to sun and weather, would it still be economical?

 

If you can strip the car down and prep the car for paint, see what kind of deal you can get from a Maaco shop (or similar paint place) to just shoot the paint you bring to them. Buy your paint from a local pro auto paint store and work with them to get exactly what is needed for the paint work.

If someone offered to paint my car for $3000 after I strip it down, I would be running to hand the money over.

 

In the 1980's I painted my 68 myself. I used lacquer paint, which is excellent for an inexperienced painter. The lacquer coats are thin, so if you make a mistake..a runner or a blemish, it's easy to just wet sand off the mistake and try again. I used a lot of paint......paint....wet sand.....paint again.....wet sand.... I don't think lacquer paints are available today because of the EPA? Lacquer had a great advantage in that it dries quickly......you don't need a paint booth. Before painting the car, I added a large constellation of florescent lights in the garage.....you really need a lot of light to see clearly want the painted surface looks like. Also, a quality professional paint gun is needed. I first used the Craftsman paint gun that was included with the air compressor....it wouldn't put down good coats.....bought a Binks and it was magic compared to the utility Craftsman gun. Sadly, I had to discover that painting requires a blood alcohol content of 0.00%. Painting seem like a tedious task, I was surprised that just a tiny bit of alcohol was disabling.
........................................ .
A few years ago, I had the car repainted by J&D Corvette in Bellflower, Ca. They were flexible with costs. They would consider painting the car if you did all the prep. For them to do everything, the price was $10,000. They did explain that after removing all paint down to the fiberglass, microcracks would be discovered which would have to be ground out and filled with a resin/chopped fiberglass patchs, and depending upon the number, they might have to adjust the price up. There was another surprise.....the original engine leaked a lot of oil.....the fiberglass rear valance panel...the panel with the tail lights.....had been oil soaked all the way through! and had to be replaced. I also paid extra to have the 68 body panels all matched up. At the juncture of the convertible lid, the rear quarter panels, and the door edge....nothing matched up well, it came from the factory like this. I also paid extra to have the hood fit exactly with the front clip. There was sticker shock. But after decades of repair work, their prices had always been reasonable so I accepted the really big bill. They did excellent work....lot of man hours.

 

So you think that $3000 is 'too much'?

True story THIS YEAR!

1968 Corvette L-71. Long story, but gravel and rocks got thrown at my buddy's car. The car was original and BLACK LACQUER.

Insurance job.

Total cost of re-doing the car from fiberglass up to 'very high quality' 9.5/10.....wait for it! $52,000

unkahal

 

Not surprised. A lot of labor to bring these 50+ year old cars back. After having spent quite a lot of time working in a shop, providing labor to refinish my car, I have seen first hand how much labor the process can take. It adds up fast at $75 per hour for labor. Cost of materials has been going up as well.