respray costs, any clues

[craig 12]

i suppose this may be in a thread of months or years gone by, as you know my intrepid search for a gilbern rolls on with a few cars in the running, a theme which pops up on most cars is that they would require a respray to bring up to scratch, ,, can anyone tell me please the cost of a good/respectable respray on fibreglass and if its hard to get the paint guys to work with glass fibre,, obviously were not talking concours or to get a national day winner , just a clean respray where they would either remove the items which would catch the overspray or at least mask up proffesionally, ive heard so many bad reports of glass fibre resprays crazing after 12 months, its very worrying.. lotus dont have the same problems do they? i have a cousin who knows someone who sprays custom cars/hot rods , but his work is mainly on tin..........

[Greybags]

Craig ..

The more layers of paint the more risk of crazing, flexible glassfibre adding another element to that.
There is always more risk of crazing on glassfibre, and the thicker the paint, the more risk of cracking/crazing.

It is not possible to be very exact here as it will depend on how much work has to be done to prepare the body for paint and whose doing it..

The local chap that I know and was thinking of using suggested the following as possible prices..

I completely strip the car of all windows, chrome, handles door panels, etc, etc etc, do all the repair and preparation filling and rubbing down between coats to his statisfaction. He sprays it, I flat it back. Approx £800-1000

A quick blow over, very little preparation, and masking, Approx £1000-£1800

A reasonable job, with good preparation (me removing a lot of the trim, bumpers etc) approx £1800-3000 depending on how much preparation work was required.

A top quality, no holds barred, totally the dogs do dahs, anything between £3500-10,000

These were all very approximate just for guidence and were based on a solid colour, no metalflake or pearls.

They also depended on how much preparation work was required to get a stable flat surface to spray on, and how much work you are prepared to do yourself.

The local chap I was thinking of using was happy for me to strip all the trim off the car and do the repairs and initial rubbing down under his guidance, when the surface was prepared to the correct standard he would spray the primers and guide coat, I then do all the rubbing down under his supervision, and when I had it right, he would put the colour coats on. I then do all the flatting again, and he would then machine polish...

This was how I got the cheaper cost with a good finish, as I was providing all the labour, which is what cost..
Have a look round with your local sprayers and see what they will offer you.

But as always Craig, a full repray that wont crack or look crap after a few months takes a lot of work and time, and time is money...

It may be cheaper in the long run to buy a car that needs some welding and mechanical work, than a car that needs paint or interior, as it is a lot cheaper to get mechanical work done than it is cosmetic work.

Or do the same as a lot of the rest of us, learn a few skills and do it yourself. All the paint for mine has cost less than £100, and then the cost of a decent spray gun, Looking around I managed to get a £140 gun for £45.



Grahame