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I'm considering the possibility of having my ride painted, since I managed to scratch the hell out of my nose sliding under a truck :eek: (fortunately glass damage is little to none), and a few questions I have yet been unable to answer on my own. How much should I expect to pay for a paintjob that will last, looks good and doesn't exactly need to be show quality? Assuming I'm doing the stripping myself, how much is reasonable for priming and painting?
$2647.19 and not a penny more Seriously, if you strip the car and want a painter to prime, block sand, paint, and buff I'd say that $2k to $3k is reasonable. That includes materials. It really depends on what the going rate is in your area of the country.
I'm going to paint mine myself. I'll give it a killer paint job when I'm done screwing around with it, but for now I'm just going to sand it down a little and give it a halfway decent job. Something that looks nice and shiny but I wont cry if it gets chipped. Right now it has a Maaco job on it that someone did to turn it back to yellow. Originally the Car was yellow, but someone painted it blue. When the maaco job was done, it doesn't look like it was sanded, rather someone just painted the yellow on right over the blue, clear coat and all. There is still evidence of blue here and there, like under the gas cap, bottoms of the doors and deep in the front door jamb area. I'll fix the cracks while I'm at it too. I can paint pretty well, so I'm not to worried about the quality.
I figure I'll spend $15-20 on the prep work, as I'll be doing it myself and about 350-400 on the paint job itself. I'll turn my garage into a makeshift spray booth for a day.
Have you tried painting yourself? It's not as hard as you think, and if you don't need show quality then go for it.
I went the cheap route with my paint job. It looks decent, and it gets a lot of compliments. But the next time, I'm going to do it myself. Gdaina did his, and it looks sweet. I figure I'll do it next winter. It's not an easy job, but with a lot of patience, you can really do a nice paint job for not a lot of money. :cheers:
You have my full attention, I have never stripped a vehicle before let alone a corvette, what do I need to do as it has been repainted once. I am told that you need to take it down to the gelcoat, is there a chemical stripper that you use, I would love to make this a winter project but am a little nervous and not sure where to start but more than willing to learn.
If you guys go to my website in my signature there's a whole article on stripping paint. It's messy but not technically difficult. If you decide to prime the car yourself you should check with your painter on what type of primer to use. The new two part paints typically work as a system and the painter probably has a favorite system that he uses. Let him tell you what type of primer he prefers under his topcoats. If a painter doesn't know what type of primer was used he may not guarantee his topcoats. Good Luck. :seeya
Vettfixr makes a good point- in fact, my shop said they needed to do everything from the primer up if I wanted a guarantee on the job. Good luck on your project.