REFINISHING

All, I have been looking into having my glider refinished. Casual conversations with other pilots revealed that most think a 'normal' refinishing job would cost about $10k. After speaking with Gaines in Georgia, I believe that is wildly optimistic. Gaines charges $60 per hour, and he says the wings alone take 300+ hours if they are done correctly; 500+ hours to do the entire glider! That's more than my purchase price! Does anyone know where I might get my glider refinished (properly) in the US? I'm beginning to think that shipping it overseas may still be a cheaper option despite the poor exchange rates now.

I think that the best refinish jobs coming out of the states right now are by M&H Soaring in Elmira. Problem is that they are usually booked for the year by the end of the soaring season so you might not be able to get it done by spring. I just had my ASW-24 fuselage done and it looks perfect!!

Harold 'HE'

In New Zealand the workshop at our field does refinish work at $660-$700US per metre of wingspan (for the whole glider)and to ship a container here and back costs approx $6500-$7000US so it costs more for one glider but if you join together and send multiple gliders it gets cheaper fast.They have been in business for 20 yrs and are the NZ SH agent If you want more info contact me gary

There is also a place in Brisbane Australia

Come out and have a fly on Sunday we had 11 knot thermals streets stuff thermaling 1.02 in the air 54 mins 100K

In the last 7 days I have 21 hours

In Poland you can get a good refinish at a reasonable price. Check out http://www.avionic.pl for details. (They did an excellent job with our 55). But you have the problem of shipping the glider across the Atlantic, which is probably of the order of 1-2k$ one way.

I am a refinishing my ventus B wings. I have 150 hours into the project at this time. I have removed the gel coat, Surfaced with Epoxy and Glass Beads, surfaced with vinyl ester primer, and am ready to apply acrylic urethane. I still have to surface the control surfaces and flaps and finish paint them. I estimate the total time will be approximatley 200 to 250 hours.

Richard

Refinishing may or may not include re-profiling. Be sure to ask what is included in the fees. No one's mentioned George Applebay, Applebay Aviation, in Moriarty, NM. He did the wings and tail on my 303 and they're beautiful. I don't know what he charged exactly as the work was done a couple years before my partner and I bought the ship.

Brent

Tom Knauff sent out email about doing a bulk shipment of gliders to Europe for refinishing. The cost (including shipping) is way better than what you'll ever see here in the US. I asked the guys at Gehrlein's how much they'd charge to refinish my Std Cirrus: $25K, which is just ever so slighty above the purchase price

You should contact him if you are interested (and can be without your glider for that period of time).

I 'm from Queensland in Australia and just had the fuse down on our Nimbus 2 C locally.

There are a few here in Australia with two at least locals who do great work.

I know one did George Lees Nimbus 4 dm which he was very pleased with.

Call if you want details and again exchange rates make a difference.

Robert Percy

WoW!

First off, Paul Gaines finishes are second to none. These little negative comments seem to be 'dis'-in our boy here in Atlanta. But of course, whoever did your ship *would* be the best in the world, right?

Paul Gaines does great work. Be sure to check out his highly customized ASW-20 on the floor of the convention here in Atlanta in February! You can see if you like the results.

Anyone that has refinished a sailplane..... or for that matter, smoothed or profiled one to perfection and then final sanded to 1200 and polished the entire thing can tell you of the work involved. Doing it 'right' is the big caveat. I've seen refinish jobs that fell apart in a couple of years. Waste of time!

Doin' it right = Spending the time + Knowledge. Time + Knowledge = $$$$$

John Bojack 'J4' LS-6c/18w

I called Tom Knauff yesterday and this is the summary of our conversation:

1) He got a lot of responses to his email but nobody committed firmly to send his / her glider to Slovakia. Firm commitment means in his mind to have the money ready and be willing to take the glider to Tom's gliderport 2) He is doing this because he wants to refinish one of his own gliders. He needs that glider back by early spring though. Now it is to late for him to send it and get it back on time, so he is going to wait until next fall 3) The cost to refinish a standard class glider is $7000 to $8000 4) The ideal is to ship three gliders per container. This drives the shipping cost down to ~$1500 per glider. More gliders per container would require difficult packing 5) In this Slovakia shop they can refinish either with gelcoat or polyurethane. He got the reference from Shremp Hirth and apparently they make a great job

If someone is ready to commit send me an email and we can go back to Tom. He sounded like he would help

Best regards

Miguel