Cost of Repaint

[CharlieCobra]

Originally Posted by minaret

Hey Charlie, if you can really do a deck job including skid and pulling hardware and rebedding for 5k, will you do mine? That's cheaper than I could do it myself by a long shot! What do you pay your crew, six packs of beer?! Our quality guys who have been with us from the start get $25-$35 an hour, with excellent coverage and bennies. Even our laborers get close to $20. As a result our shop rate is high, though not as high as most in Seattle, even though they pay substantially less in wages with few bennies. If you can really Awlgrip a deck with hardware removal and skid (real skid not Kiwigrip) for that rate, I'm coming up there! Somehow I doubt it though, for us the materials bill is usually about $1500 and lay days are about $1500, leaving not much for labor. Out our rate that would mean the whole job would have to be done in less than 5 man days, or 40 hours. Not even close to possible. What is your rate? If you are burying these costs in a bigger job just to get the job, that's one thing, but doing just the deck job for 5k is insanely cheap. Like giving it away just to keep the crew busy cheap.

I'd LOVE to be able to pay my Boys that kind of money. We started this on a shoe string and don't have the workload to support those rates. Hell, our shop rate for the Winter is $32 hr. Yes, we can strip a deck down, apply epoxy primer, LPU and non-skid (Not Kiwi Grip) for 5K on a 34' SB. We don't use Alwgrip, I don't like it. If requested, we can but it'll bump the price by the materials cost difference. I've been known to do a job for very little profit to keep the doors open.....

[minaret]

Originally Posted by CharlieCobra

I'd LOVE to be able to pay my Boys that kind of money. We started this on a shoe string and don't have the workload to support those rates. Hell, our shop rate for the Winter is $32 hr. Yes, we can strip a deck down, apply epoxy primer, LPU and non-skid (Not Kiwi Grip) for 5K on a 34' SB. We don't use Alwgrip, I don't like it. If requested, we can but it'll bump the price by the materials cost difference. I've been known to do a job for very little profit to keep the doors open.....

Aaah...-I thought you said that price was for a 50' sailboat. Mine is 52' on deck and has a big pilothouse and cockpit with loads of geometry, you can see in my pics under my name there. It doesn't really need a paint job, I was just giving you a hard time. That is a crazy low rate, $32 an hour. That's lower than we charged 15 years ago. Back then we too sometimes did big jobs for really cheap just to keep the doors open. Now the Boss just makes us work on his boats on the rare occasion when theres a chance between jobs. Personally I don't need the hours so I just go home if there's nothing to interest me, I'm the short timer there. You should advertise more down here to bring some of the work up there-maybe you already do. Most of our workload is repeat clients, many of whom are brokers or other businesses in other parts of the marine field. We do a lot of structural work for local marine electronics businesses for instance, ie thruster tubes, autopilot mounts, stabilizer installs, etc etc.
I like Bellingham too, sometimes me and the wife and kids go up for a weekend just to cruise the old used marine goods stores up there. It's been awhile though. Anyway, have fun with the SC50! You ever get your peeler back and peel that thing?

[CharlieCobra]

I had to go buy another one to finish it. We're filling and fairing, with very little filling, now. Yeah, the normal is $40, which is still too low but maybe we can raise it a but this Summer. I'd like to be at $50 soon. We can actually make a little money at that rate. We're doing the SC-50 for about 5K but that goes with the complete paint, hull and house etc as part of the deal.