Primer Color

[bumsteer]

For all you painting gurus. Final color will be Christen Eagle Blue. Would I be better off using the white or dark green epoxy primer. I can come up pros and cons for both. Since many of your paint jobs are excellent thought I'd ask those with experience (right now that ain't me). Thank you in advance.

Rick

[AirFox]

I painted half my plane with CE Blue Aerothane and used white primer on the cowl and struts. Turned out great!

Scott

[dcsfoto]

I have pro fabric airplane shop close. they are painting mine.

they prime and base paint everything white first, it makes everything come out the same..

David
7SS 912iS

[Dave S]

Advice from my long time polyfiber dealer - have everything white before a topcoat goes on (unless the topcoat is white). He also recommended spraying a coat of white polytone on the gray poly spray before putting a color coat other than white down. FYI - Either Polytone or aerothane will go on over polytone.

The science behind it is white reflects uniformly through the topcoat while differing colors of undercoat will reflect different wavelengths (like gray, green etc compared to white) causing the topcoat to appear to be a different color with the different color undercoats.

Of course, I had to try it....sprayed yellow aerothane over 1) white epoxy primer, 2) gray polyspray and 3) over grey polyspray with a coat of white polytone.

Results - yellow aerothane over the gray polyspray looked obviously darker while the aerothane over white epoxy primer and grey polyspray which had white polytone overspray looked identical. Also did plain yellow aerothane over fabric without the grey suncoat and found a lot of light penetrated the yellow aerothane - bottom line is the topcoat will pass light through it reflecting off whatever is underneath - the undercoat does affect what the top coat color looks like.

[HighWing]

Even be careful on the white. When painting my airplane, I found some Arctic White for a dollar a quart in a store fazing out the paint dept. And needing just a tad more white for the base coat used that under part of the cowl near the Insignia White used on the entire rest of the airplane. Big mistake. I finally had to repaint the cowl do get rid of that "Eye Magnet". The typical base coat white - at least in the Poly Fiber line - is the Insignia White. Arctic white is definitely gray like dirty snow, I guess.

[Dave S]

Lowell is spot on......white is not white - unless you are using the same brand and color and the same manufacturers paint system. Chemical compatibility is an unknown black hole if different manufacturers/paint systems are mixed.

[bumsteer]

Thank you all. I'll go with white.

Rick