Painting Screw Heads

[jiott]

I would like to paint the phillips screw heads for my wingtips, etc. Is there some good way to prevent paint from getting into the phillips cross slots, or must I just carefully paint the heads by hand with an artist brush and avoid the slots?

Jim

[rcnut]

you might want to try a little vaseline in the slots with a tooth pick. it will prevent the paint from sticking

[DBVZ]

Toothpick may take some time. You could also try spreading it on the head, and then wipe it off (not aggressively) leaving some in the slots. It just needs to keep the paint from sticking where you do not want it, so a heavy grease or bar soap could work too. Just random thoughts. I have not tried it. When I needed to break screws free on a Piper wing tank, that had been in for 50 years and painted over at least once, we used a kind of punch that would back out a screw just a little when hit with a hammer - lightly of course, so as not to damage the wing rib. It worked, even without picking out the screw head slots.

[Ken Birchard]

I painted all of the screw heads on my plane. Just drilled a bunch of holes in a 2x4, put the screws in and spray painted them. I didn't have any problems with the slots getting plugged to the point where I has problems.

[chefwarthog]

Juste fill the heads with the bleu putty that child are use to stick poster on the wall, it will fill the head, stay in place and will be eazy to take out with a toothpick.

[Monocock]

I know someone who lined his all up vertically in a block of wood and then dropped candle wax into the heads. When it set he scraped off the excess and then painted the heads. When the paint dried he put them in the fridge (yes,honestly!!) and after an hour he took them out and the wax came out really easily.

I personally think he should be in a special hospital for this kind of behaviour but he seems happy enough.

[HighWing]

My experience is like Ken's. Sprayed paint doesn't like to fill holes, that is why pinholes can be such a problem and why Polyfiber doesn't recommend sprayed on Polybrush.

I painted screw heads on two airplanes and just put them in holes on a couple of pieces of wood and went at it. Though, I must admit that I used butten head cap screws in most places (windshield, horizontal stab closeout) which use an allen wrench for inserting. I did use some flat head Phillips type as well. Using the wax and filler ideas, I wonder how you would get the wax off the surface of the screw head so the paint would adhere. I think that would be my biggest worry with filling the holes - the paint chipping off the surface because of wax or other filler left on the surface. I've got over 100 painted screws - can't imagine "carefully" waxing them all.
Lowell

[szicree]

Ditto the wax concerns. The screws are already not the best for getting paint to stick and any wax residue is only gonna make it worse. I say soak em in solvent, stick em in a board and spray away. With proper spray technique there will be very little paint in the recesses. I sprayed the screws that hold the tanks on my RV-4 and there was no build-up of paint in the screws.

[Lion8]

This might be a little 'McGiver' type of solution, but why not put a phillips screw drive tip into the screw and give it a shot of paint, then more to the next one? No greese, No wax. You can buy a box of no.2 phillips bits for a couple bucks. These are the type that go into a dry wall screw gun attachments. It won't hurt the screw tips. Good luck, -Lion8, N.J.

[jiott]

I really appreciate all the good ideas and comments.
I have several ways to go now.

Jim