Refinishing Ventus b Fuselage

Hey Nick,

It's an excellent question - some of us who have done more than 1 refinish have had a lot of time to ponder this question in the middle of every 4 hour sanding session :-)

Quick back of the envelope would be something like this:

- Routine full refinish of a standard class glider for a shop with the right tools, process and skills is around 450 hours (just as a baseline - YMMV)
- Rough SWAG suggests 25% skilled 75% un/semi-skilled
- Figure you want to charge the skilled labor at $60/hr and the un/semi-skilled at $25/hr (note - assume the owner/operator is the skilled guy/gal and that there is some margin on the un-skilled rate that goes to him/her as well)
- At those ratios and rates the labor for a refinish would be about:
* $6750 for the high-skilled
* $8500 for the un/semi-skilled
* Total labor around $15K +/-
- Add in another $5000 for materials and consumables, shop charges, other fixed costs
- You're at a $20K refinish +/- a few percent.
- You can argue around the margins a bit (say bill the unskilled out at $18/hr), but it's not going to end up with a $10K number.

Kind of explains why the only people refinishing 1st and 2nd generation glass are either DIY owners or clubs.

P3

And, just to be clear, this isn't suggesting that the current going rate in the US ($25K +++) isn't the right number given the current model (i.e. relatively low volume, "small business").

My estimate assumes that you can get the Earl Scheib model up and and running. "I'll paint any glider for $19,950 no ups, no extras". To do that, you need volume and a reasonable amount of cheap, semi-skilled labor.