Paint, strip or sand.

[brien23]

I have seen the pro and con on strip the paint or sand and paint, so what is the price for each, after the paint dries, the finish most look the same. As to the weight "Refer to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) where it should tell you the percent weight solids of the paint. Suppose the % Wt solids is 60% and the weight of the paint is 9.0 lbs/gal, then the weight of the solid paint will be 5.4 lbs/gal. If you intend to spray apply the coating to the aircraft using an HVLP spray gun, you can guesstimate that your transfer efficiency will be about 50%. In other words for every gallon of paint that you use, only 2.7 lbs of solid paint is deposited on the aircraft. The remainder falls to the floor or goes into the filters of a spray booth. Hence, if you know approximately how many gallons of paint you will need to purchase, you can estimate the weight of the solid paint that will be deposited."

 

[Bell206]

you can estimate the weight of the solid paint that will be deposited."

Thats the easy part. What is the unknown is how much the existing coat(s) of paint weigh. Wouldn't be the first time one removes the old paint down to the metal, preps and repaints, and comes out with a lighter aircraft than when it started. As to cost, it various a lot depending on the who, how, where the aircraft gets painted.

 

[bonefishpete]

Weight of the paint is your least concern. Corrosion is your biggest concern and how to treat it. My opinion is spraying new paint on old (10-20 years old) paint is financially foolish.

Painting is extremely expensive compared to years ago.

Only use an aircraft painter to do a sand in paint. You can sand the rivet heads off and make the aircraft unairworthy.