Still waaaay to cheap dude. There's no way I'd slog my guts out for several hours inc. materials for twenty quid!!!

Painting's looking good btw...

regards

J

I know, even the pro painters like yourself charge too little...

I'll re-think the prices when I've finished my website .

Thanks a lot.

I think the pricing of these is always difficult. There are a lot of factors to take into account. One being, what's going to win me the race a set of new tyres or a fancy shell paint job, in that sense the new tyres will literally win every time.

The other thing is these are TOY CARS I don't care what anyone says they're not scale models they're just expensive toys for those of us that don't like growing up, me included and I'm 40 next year :cry: so because they're toy cars it's just a hobby to most of us and therefore probably can't afford to pay a fortune.

Other than that the hours it takes to do these is incredible, well for a lot of people I know, obviously there are the super quick overly talented types that bang many out a day but for me I can just do them at my own pace, it's not my job so I just charge some money. You can't equate a proper hourly rate to them, I think mine averages about a pound an hour when I've taken into account design time, marking out the shell and then the quickest part of the job the paint work.

So fair enough if you or others on here don't want to charge people much so be it, I guess we're all price conditioned by each other but none of us are charging enough.

:) ..

+1 but my old gaffer would call us 'busy fools!'

cheers

Ju

I understand, but I'm just an intermediate level painter so I charge intermediate paint prices at the moment. Haven't been painting that long, maybe a year in total, might not even be that and I'm grateful to the people who do come my way for a paint job.

I think the effort I put into each one for the prices I charge reflect it anyway, if I was being paid £40 for a touring car etc, I'd go all out on it. Maybe that's not right the attitude, but you get what you pay for as they say.

What's crap is I don't have time to practise much! :(

I'm by no means a pro painter either, and agree with everything both yourself and Ian say, but it just pains me to see skillful creative work valued so poorly, but i guess the market is what it is. I'm jacking in painting for anyone other than my lad or close friends - I have little time too, so it suits me better that way, just to scratch the creative itch when I feel like it.

Enjoy your painting, I guess that's really what it's all about...

cheers

J

Yeah whatever you charge you need to enjoy it and I think that's the best thing that's been said on here.

@ Julian, sorry to hear the above news fella.

Cheers dude,

not an earth shattering epiphany, just realised i was getting a bit burn't out with trying to keep up with requests, and have had my good nature taken advantage of on a couple of occasions recently which has left me out of pocket. I imagine it's a fairly familiar story to most painters on here. I do love the painting, but find that I tend to be a little more creative when it's my own shell and there's no pressure to avoid cock-ups.

Here's a tecchy question btw, I used black Plasticoat straight over the top of Chrome on two shells recently, and with the rough and tumble of racing, some of the chrome has flaked off. Would I be better to back the chrome with a waterbased black first, or is it more the case that the chrome wasn't cured enough before applying the Plasticoat. Never happened before, and keen to avoid it happening again.

cheers

J

Assuming it's RCS or Alclad chrome, I always go with two light coats of waterbased black before any other colours. I've had some slight issues with chrome pins lifting when removing surrounding mask if I get a bit carried away, but never with it flaking in a crash.

TBH chrome gives me fits all round. Love the effect, hat working with it lol.

Julian, I know where your coming from mate. Ian and I were chatting about it on Sunday at TORCH. I'm getting back into painting ATM, after being out for a couple of years to concentrate on racing. Now I'm racing a bit less, and have more time in the evening (electrics take up so much less time than nitro:lol:) I'm looking to do more spraying. Constantly having to be 'on form' and producing the goods in terms of design and spraying is a lot more pressure than anyone who's never done it can imagine.

Guys we've hi-jacked Steve's thread :yawn:

We should let him have it back now !

Mods if you want to move the last 2 or 3 posts to a new thread called old guys talk rubbish please feel free.

Doesn't bother me at all...

I have a technical question regarding chrome... Does it smell bad?

I paint in an abandoned conservatory you see , which is fully heated, but obviously connected to the house still and don't want smelly paint smells entering the house and intoxicating the rest of the family. I'm wondering would I need to run into the garage to spray the chrome, although the garage is not heated, so not sure if that would do the chrome application any good...

It is solvent paint so it will smell, the thinners you need to wash the brush out with will smell more.

And your right it will go on better if its warmer ! Just use the heat gun.

Cheers for the feedback, actually, I cheat and use Fastrax aerosol chrome. I find a few dusted coats flashed off in-between with the hairdryer works a treat, and then I don't have to worry about the solvent stink cleaning the airbrush. A bit of googling backs up your theories that it needs backing with waterbased first though.

The Plasticoat is just to waterproof the whole job. Works well, but has to be dusted on and flashed off immediately much like the chrome. Perhaps it etched into the chrome and loosened it from the polycarbonate surface, or made the paint more brittle in some way. Whatever, I've a touch up job on my hands!!!

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...n2/edited3.jpg

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...n2/Edited1.jpg

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...n2/edited2.jpg

Not my design, it's a SHOP UFO's that someone liked and wanted me to give a go for them, I just remixed it a little.

nice1 buddy :)

most peeps won't appreciate it but a fair bit of work goes into a paint job like that ;)

That's come out real well Steve, glad you got it done in the end ! As Jon said, lots of work in that, quite technical to get it correct, you've made a real nice job of it too !

Lovely and clean, really liking the tourer. The colour combination is excellent.

Thanks chaps, it did take too long. 10+ hours maybe...

Nice bit of paint lifting went on in this one.