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Thread: painting

  1. #1
    Senior Member Flybyjim's Avatar
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    Default painting

    I have been working on the paint room and now ready to pull the trigger. I have covered the plane using the Superflight materials and using their system. Each fabric covered piece will get a double cross coat of primer, lightly sand the primer and move onto color. I am going to add a couple photos from tonights spraying. The outlets in the photo are not hot and I usually have them covered just in case someone (that would be me) flips the breaker.
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  2. #2
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    Default Re: painting

    Aerothane tends to be attracted to the plastic sheets (static?), then after a few paint sessions it
    has a tendency to release and make nice pretty snow in the paint booth if the plastic is disturbed ...
    I ended up just painting in the garage with the doors open and fixing the odd dust nibs with
    wet sanding, rubbing compound after painting. Without plastic sheets.

    You might not have this problem, but I did. I don't know the best solution, but it was an issue that
    led to frustration for me.

    Maybe other paints don't do this?

    Jeff

  3. #3
    Senior Member Flybyjim's Avatar
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    Default Re: painting

    Thanks Jeff, I'll keep that in mind as I progress along.

  4. #4
    N14ND's Avatar
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    Default Re: painting

    I made a 20x10x10' plastic sheet paint booth. I used 5 mil plastic as it was going to be a while and had less tendency to flail in the wind. (My barn has one open side) The plastic is on the floor, sides and top. I painted the sides and floor with white Kilz for reflectivity of the light. The booth has been up for about 8 years. Some of the paint has flaked off the sides but it comes off in large pieces and has never come close to anything I have been painting. When you cover and mask your painting surfaces to put on stripes you can use the thin plastic, but only use it once. The paint (Aerothane, Stewarts, Trinity, etc) will blow off the plastic if you try to use it again. Once and done. Or you will be doing it again.
    “I wish I knew now as much as I thought I knew when I was 18”

    Building Kitfox 5 (25 yrs and counting)
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  5. #5
    taff's Avatar
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    Default Re: painting

    I used 3M plastic masking sheet against the walls.
    In the car repair industry, I never had a issue of paint flaking off this plastic.

    https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-...stic-Sheeting/
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    Completed my Classic 4, May 2003. It had std wings. speedster tail.
    912 UL Rotax. Sold to a person in Spain.

    Completed a Skybolt December 2018

  6. #6
    Senior Member
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    Default Re: painting

    I don't remember what I used, but it was probably from Home Depot. The paint was attracted to it by static
    and would dry, and then later release in flakes if you moved it. I later got to where I just didn't worry about it,
    and sprayed with the garage door wide open on very calm/still days .. the few dust nibs I got were not a big deal
    when I later figured out that simply wet sanding, and polishing compound made them vanish. Ended up wet
    sanding the entire airplane and buffing it out. Was a bit tedious, but it came out very nice.

    I helped my Dad build some guitars, and we discovered that we could simply paint them with a brush with shellac
    sand it all the back to nearly wood, and then buff the finish, and they look like glass. So in the end, even if you
    do a really bad job spraying, it's almost a guarantee to can fix it with elbow grease.

    Meguiar's Scratch-X can perform literally miracles with paint if you wet sand with 600-1200 grit wet paper

    Jeff

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