Re-painting Featherweight machine
 

My son is custom auto painter & often has his cars featured in magazines. My question concerns the cost for painting sewing machines. He just did a featherweight in turquoise. It is beautiful! I asked what he was charging...he said it was his first and was for a friend...that he would have no idea what he should charge for a job like this. But said he really enjoyed the process and perhaps should add to his 'repertoire'! I was wondering if I could ask here what the rates are. I realize it matters where you live, and can vary from state to state. BTW! His customer supplied the decals. .TIA

The rates would vary quite a bit on how the machine was prepared. Is it bare of all the innards and shiny bits? Will he have to take it apart. VSMs have so many tiny curves I would imagine it would be an amazing pain. He knows what her charges by the hour for a car. How many hours did he spend on the FW?

Why wouldn't he charge the same rate to do the Featherweight
as he would for doing a car?

Whole lot less paint cost for a FW than a car..

I just googled and found these guys. http://www.featherweightsincolor.com/faq.html

I love the painted featherweights. I’ve seen some great colors.

Thx one tomato plant! I forwarded the page to son, but I doubt he will pursue this new venture...says he is too busy w/cars. He works far too many hours now. His long time friend got a beautiful bargain in her turquoise gift. I'd like to talk him into doing my FW in sparkly red! But I won't .

I have been thinking about this post ever since I saw it a day or so ago. I would never thought of doing a conversion like this. I would love to here more on this if they figure out what cost would be evolved. I am thinking about painting one of my machines. Would love to know if they start this as a sub division of the auto painting.

Mermaid, how about having your son paint your machine as a Christmas gift? Just a thought.

He could paint me one for Christmas too!!😉😉😉

I think one of the things he would have to considert the time for disassembly, re-assembly and servicing the machine after it is re-assembled. This can consume quite a bit of time and has to be done correctly. Also, the application of the decals and price of the decals has to be considered as well as the cost of other materials. Not unlike a car, the machine will have to be disassembled, the surface prepped and then reassembled and customers will expect and good paint job and a good running machine when it comes back to them. A lot will depend on your location and what they market will bear.

I had them do one for me years ago and absolutely love the quality of the workmanship. For $500-$700 it was well worth it. When I was talking to them about the color purple I wanted, he said, you want the 70's 'Cuda purple. He hit the nail on the head - knew exactly what I was talking about.

I am now debating on having others painted.

Thank you, Ronie. Its always good to have a recommendation from someone who has used them.

I want to have one painted the same color my 66 Mustang that I show is painted. I have the paint code so getting the right color wouldn't be a problem. Now I just need to find another featherweight that I want to paint. My black one is too nice and the white one is, well, white! So I don't want to paint it.

Looks like you need to pick up another one then! ;-) I'm afraid to even look at more machines for fear I will succumb to the need to bring it home and clean it! How rare is a white featherweight? I've never seen one.

I saw one at Quilt Festival and instantly wanted one. If you aren't worried about how much you pay, they are fairly easy to find but often pricey. I, on the other hand, am a bit cheap and didn't want to spend $700 on one. I looked for a little over a year on Estatesales.net to find one. I found one in the case at a sale less than 10 miles from my house. I showed up at dark thirty for the sale and was glad I did. The machine I bought was only $50 in the case. It wasn't working but I did get to test it to see that the motor would run so I figured it was probably something not too complicated like cleaning/oiling. It turned out it was clean as anything and just needed a good oiling to get it moving. I didn't even have to adjust anything. It sews like a dream. I made my husband a quilt on it last Christmas.

Plum Crazy is what Mopar called it.

Thank you, Leon. I just asked my husband and he said it was called "Plum Crazy"