G
Geoff
Aircraft painting is a strange business. When I was ready to get my newly-finished RV-8 painted, I started by doing some online searches. However, many paint shops don’t have an online presence at all, or have one that is many years old and badly in need of updating. I quickly came to the conclusion that this is primarily a word-of-mouth business that really doesn’t need to advertise. The shops I eventually talked to were all booked well into the future, so I guess this business model works for them.
I got some names from www.schemedesigners.com (but they did not do the design), searched the forums for paint shop stories, and asked everyone I knew for recommendations. I really didn’t want to fly across the country for paint, but I was willing to go up to about 1000 miles if necessary. After all, RVs can cover distance fairly quickly.
I initially contacted about 10 paint shops. Four of them never even returned my phone call or email. One answered the email about two months later with an “attached quote” that wasn’t attached. Another told me that their business was based on reputation, and that if I wasn’t already strongly considering them, nothing he could say would make me change my mind. Yet another spent quite a bit of time on the phone and in email exchanges, but after I went to visit their shop I never heard from them again. They even told me, on multiple occasions, to call and remind them if they forget to communicate. It seems like all paint shops concentrate their energies on painting and don’t really care too much about the administration end of things. Needless to say, this part of the process was very discouraging for me.
The actual review is in the next post -- due to post size limitations...
I got some names from www.schemedesigners.com (but they did not do the design), searched the forums for paint shop stories, and asked everyone I knew for recommendations. I really didn’t want to fly across the country for paint, but I was willing to go up to about 1000 miles if necessary. After all, RVs can cover distance fairly quickly.
I initially contacted about 10 paint shops. Four of them never even returned my phone call or email. One answered the email about two months later with an “attached quote” that wasn’t attached. Another told me that their business was based on reputation, and that if I wasn’t already strongly considering them, nothing he could say would make me change my mind. Yet another spent quite a bit of time on the phone and in email exchanges, but after I went to visit their shop I never heard from them again. They even told me, on multiple occasions, to call and remind them if they forget to communicate. It seems like all paint shops concentrate their energies on painting and don’t really care too much about the administration end of things. Needless to say, this part of the process was very discouraging for me.
The actual review is in the next post -- due to post size limitations...
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