current project

[Planepainter]

This forum seems a little slow so I thought I would share one of my current projects. This is an experimental home built airplane. The builder painted this plane himself, at least I hope he did. If a shop did a job that bad they just need to close their doors. Everything was super dry. Where it did have some shine to it, the paint looked like it had no reducer in it. Overall I would have rated it a 1 only because the aluminum was protected but that was it. Since the job was so bad are only option was the strip off the old paint and start again from bare metal. I spaced it and forgot to take pics of the stripping, the detail clean up, and the pre-primer masking. Any way, here she is with a fresh coat of primer.



Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic. I'll use my good digi-cam next time.

The canopy and the engine cowls have been removed in this photo. The next step is fiberglass work around the windshield to make it more presentable.

More to follow as this project moves on.

[Henry]

to paint a plane. At least on a car you have breaks at each panel but the plane is the panel. Even with big stripes painted the length of the body, it's still a long way. Couple passes and time to fill the gun again.
What type gun do you use and what type of paint? Henry

[Len]

I usually paint the wings and tail sections separately from the fuselage. The DeVilbiss DeKup system is great for plane painting because you can paint upside down without spilling paint or having the gun sputter.

DeKup Link

[style]

This forum seems a little slow so I thought I would share one of my current projects. This is an experimental home built airplane. The builder painted this plane himself, at least I hope he did. If a shop did a job that bad they just need to close their doors. Everything was super dry. Where it did have some shine to it, the paint looked like it had no reducer in it. Overall I would have rated it a 1 only because the aluminum was protected but that was it. Since the job was so bad are only option was the strip off the old paint and start again from bare metal. I spaced it and forgot to take pics of the stripping, the detail clean up, and the pre-primer masking. Any way, here she is with a fresh coat of primer.



Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic. I'll use my good digi-cam next time.

The canopy and the engine cowls have been removed in this photo. The next step is fiberglass work around the windshield to make it more presentable.

More to follow as this project moves on.

that looks neat,is there a special type of paint your suposed to use or will any old car paint due..

[Planepainter]

to paint a plane. At least on a car you have breaks at each panel but the plane is the panel. Even with big stripes painted the length of the body, it's still a long way. Couple passes and time to fill the gun again.
What type gun do you use and what type of paint? Henry

I find planes a little easier than cars actually. I'm a little biased though, I have 20 years in the aviation industry.

You can't see it in that photo but there are seams where two or more metal panels come together. For that airplane I'll break it up into two sections. The wings and horizontal tail as one and the body/vertical tail as another.

For primer I use a Graco Delta XT and for paint I use a Devilbiss EXL converted to a PLUS. The paint I use Sherwin Williams 'Jet Glo' a two part poly urethane.

[Planepainter]

I usually paint the wings and tail sections separately from the fuselage. The DeVilbiss DeKup system is great for plane painting because you can paint upside down without spilling paint or having the gun sputter.

DeKup Link

I get a lot of use out of 3M PPS cups. Great for odd angles and upside down. For anything bigger than a stripe I use a 2 quart pressure setup.

[Planepainter]

that looks neat,is there a special type of paint your suposed to use or will any old car paint due..

You can pretty much use what ever you want. Aviation paint is just a little bit different. It keeps it's wet edge longer, takes longer to dry, and has a higher UV resistance.

[Planepainter]

Wings painted today

[Planepainter]

Got tied up with another plane so I missed when the fuselage was painted so here is the fuselage with some tape on it.



The wingtips are already laid out.

[INXS2]

The plane looks great!! I'm not fond of shooting Jet Glo, we use Delfleet which seems to lay on easier (factory paint). The older planes were painted with DSS (Cirrus), but it's too hard to find now. Are you going to pull the rudder and check the balance after the stripes? Just wondering.

[Planepainter]

I've always thought of JetGlo as the easiest paint to apply. Some that were a total pain have gone away over the years, and rightfully so. I guess when you do something long enough it becomes easy.

The rudder was only installed for lay out. I like to make sure that the whole jam is painted. No re-balance is needed with that rudder due to it's design. It's got a lot of lead in the counter weight.

[INXS2]

I guess what I don't like about Jet Glo is the long flash time. I rather have the 10-15 minute flash instead of the 30-45 (too many things could go wrong). Imron was the paint I hated to use! Make sure you add more pictures when the stripping is done.

[Planepainter]

I hear you about the long flash time but it's kinda needed. Think about your average small airliner, say a Boeing 737 that Southwest Airlines uses.



If your painting the gold color, starting at the top, paint down toward the bottom, as far as you can reach left to right. Once at the bottom of you area your man-lift driver will move you over a little. Now paint all the way back to the top. You still need a wet edge to pick up when you get there. For little airplanes like I'm doing now it's not such a big deal and I can use pretty much any paint I want. I do like to use PPG for silver and gold metallics.

I'll post pics all the way to the end of this project. I'm kinda excited to share this since I don't often get to talk about what I do during the day time hours.

[INXS2]

I can understand the long flash time now after thinking about painting a large aircraft. We normally spot paint or paint pieces of the aircraft and don't do completes (except for our flight school planes). With our "home made" booth, I'd rather have a quick flash time to avoid anything that could possibly get into the paint.

[Planepainter]

This project is done. I haven't posted the last pics yet because of a death in the family. As soon as I figure out where I put the digi cam I'll have them up.