Pricing paint jobs

[steves]

Well, since I'm waiting on the headers to arrive for the project kat, I've moved my thoughts toward a paint scheme.

My first thought was to paint the whole bike rattle can black and be done with it.

I'm concerned that without clearcoat gasoline on the tank may erode said uncoated black paint.

So I talked it over with dolphins, and was thinking about getting the tank and grab bar painted, then doing the plastics myself in a matching color (so I can touch up if needed).

I called a guy today who came highly reccomended from some folks I know, but sight unseen he's thinking about $300 to do the tank and grab bar! For that much I'll go get a sprayer. Now, I'm thinking of running over Friday afternoon with the parts for him to take a look at, but the price seems high to me.

Can I some ideas of what others have paid to have similar parts painted?

[md86]

"Pain job" ? That an S&M reference ? :
Yeah , that DOES seem like alot to paint those parts . Seein as how you can get a can of paint for less than $100 and do your entire bike anyway .

[steves]

Sorry, I fixed the typo.

For $300 I'll buy my own sprayer and paint and learn to do it myself. For $150 I would consider paying to have it done.

[The CyberPoet]

A lot of it has to do with the paint itself and the prep work. Figure $300 probably includes $70 worth of chemicals and sand paper and supplies (plus overhead for his shop), and most of the rest is prep labor, with maybe an hour's worth for spraying.

Out-sourcing spraying the cheapest way:
Everything gets prepped by you in advance. Sand, filler, primer, wet sand, then take it to the shop along with a case of beer. The next car to get a good quality paint in the general color you want gets you your stuff painted at the same time (may take many weeks for such an order to come along) -- but dirt cheap, since all it means is he has to redirect an already filled sprayer towards your pieces after spraying the car.

In-house, the cheap good way:
Get an airbrush gun and a compressor designed to work with it. That'll probably run you about $75 for HarborFreight last time I checked (if you already have a compressor, price drops to about $20 - $25). Order the paints you want -- if you want color matched to stock, visit ColorRite.com
Take your time, do the prep work (primer from cans), and remember that the final product will be only as good as the prep work. Depending on where you are painting, you may need a heater (needs to be at least 50 degrees), some ventilation (fumes are dangerous) and something to keep the dust/particulate content down (if you need both dust control and ventilation, look for combo units that do both). Then spray a bit... yeah, it's a tiny sprayer, but you're probably in no hurry, and you should get very good results.

TIP:
If you are associated with the military in any way (dependent, best friend, etc), most bases have paint booths that can be rented by the day including equipment, as well as bake-booths. $20 a day was the going price if I recall, and it includes equipment (you pay for chemicals separately, and have to do post-paint clean-up of the equipment you used).

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[brooder]

Now I need to call my hobby shop on base to see if they have a both. They've got all the bays and lifts I could want, including a welding booth, but I don't know about a spray booth...hmmm.

And you suggest an airbrush, CP? What about using a detail sprayer? Granted it, and the compressor, are more expensive, I assume it would work?

[steves]

My biggest concern is making sure that the tank is protected from accidental spills. I'm going to do some asking around.

I think I can probably just scuff sand/wet sand everything and be good.

I'm not planning to take anything down to base coat, so I probably won't be priming much (if at all).

[brooder]

I've heard that color-rite's polyurethane clear coat sucks. What you might want to try doing is finding a paint shop and have them spray a clear on the tank while they're doing someone's car.

[The CyberPoet]

I've heard that color-rite's polyurethane clear coat sucks. What you might want to try doing is finding a paint shop and have them spray a clear on the tank while they're doing someone's car.

ColorRite sells a catalyzed two-part clear coat that is intended for such applications as gas tanks and fairings on motorcycles; it's fuel/oil/chemical resistant and very hard. Their poly clear is a one-part poly that is intended to be used on something like a car trunk lid, where the risk of chemical exposure would be about zero...

As for the airbrush tools, I recommended them only because of cost of the set-up -- it'll give you much better results than rattle cans at a small fraction of the cost of a traditional full compressor & sprayer set-up.

Q: Anybody ever used one of these:
18 volt cordless paint sprayer ??? Actually, I think I'll post that question in it's own thread...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[plasticweld]

We do single color paint jobs at http://empiregp.com/ for about $200 for a single color with the decals under the clear, you would have return shipping so the price for just the tank would be about $240 if you wanted the grab bar it would be another $40

I would offer this though the quickest way to lose value on your bike is to cobble some poor paint job on it that looks like it was poorly done. There is a huge difference between one gone wrong and one that you can not tell it has been repaired, the $100 you save today will be easliy lost when you sell your bike something to consider anyway

Before




After

[Fork]

Edit'd for pointless rude comments towards other members. - Wildkat

[The CyberPoet]

I can [strikeout]vogue[/strikeout]vouch for EmpireGP -- they did the GF's ninja fairing after she went down a couple years back, and did a good job at a better-than-fair price.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[md86]

I can vogue for EmpireGP --

Like Madonna ? I don't think I wanna see that . I THINK the word you're looking for is "vouch"
DAMN that tank looks nice .

[SweetLou]

Wonder how adjustable the spray is on that cordless gun. I may look at getting one just to experiment with. If its no good, I can always return it. Harbor Frieght seems really good about there returns. Good find Cyber!

[The CyberPoet]

Wonder how adjustable the spray is on that cordless gun. I may look at getting one just to experiment with. If its no good, I can always return it. Harbor Frieght seems really good about there returns. Good find Cyber!

If you do try it out, let us all know what you think about it!

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[plasticweld]

Wonder how adjustable the spray is on that cordless gun. I may look at getting one just to experiment with. If its no good, I can always return it. Harbor Frieght seems really good about there returns. Good find Cyber!

I have a hard time believing they will work, when I think of how many changes I make with air preasure and feed to the gun to get it to shoot differently I can not quite picture it being able to compensate for all of the changes. I have used electic spray guns before, it was to paint horse fence, it did seem to work well for that applications but so does a paint brush.