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Finally, took two weeks but now have the fuselage and tail feathers, engine mount, landing gear etc. all sand blasted, primed, and top coated. I was fighting unusual wet, humid weather, the borrowed sand blaster self destructed so had a few issues. I am using Stewart Systems paint which is new to me. That is the part that went really well. So easy to clean up and both the primer and top coat sprayed very nicely with a cheap detail gun. I used their Ekocrylic top coat which is harder and more durable than their Ekopoly, can be used on everything except fabric. It really has a nice gloss. My fuselage is two tone, everything that will be covered is white for easier crack detection, parts that are visible in the interior are gray metallic, which I will also use on the floorboards. One aspect of both sandblasting and painting is ensuring you haven't missed anything. The fuselage is on a rotisserie. I started at the tail post, did one tubing bay at a time rotating 90 deg each time and checking from both sides, so 8 different views before moving to the next bay. Still missed a few spots that I caught doing a final check of each process. It was a bigger job than expected, but so satisfying to have completed. Now everything that gets bolted on stays on. Starting fabric work this week.
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I thought the same thing😉Originally posted by rodsmith View Post
Getting the frame finished and painted is a really really good feeling. Congratulations.
What color are you painting the fabric? I like Stewarts but it kicked my butt for a while. The fuselage has several extra coats of paint due to us trying to make it look better. Us choosing metallic silver was probably a poor decision. We figured it out right about the time we ran out of paint.Scratch Built 4-place Bearhawk. Continental IO-360, 88" C203 McCauley prop. -
Silver and green would look great! Yes. Both silver and metallic silver have metal flakes which can be difficult. The Stewarts guru I had on speed dial said there is no harder color to spray than silver. The Stewarts paints go on differently than anything I had ever sprayed before which was another struggle. But, once you figure it out they are awesome. Done right they have a super high gloss and are tough as nails. Our main struggle was tiger striping which in our case was likely caused by two things: The metal flakes falling out of solution and holding the gun either too close or too far from the surface. I found gun distance to be critical. No doubt you can figure it out.Originally posted by rodsmith
You can see some of the striping in this pic. I'll sling some mud on it and hopefully nobody will notice the paint.
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Scratch Built 4-place Bearhawk. Continental IO-360, 88" C203 McCauley prop.Comment
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That's disappointing about the silver. I had planned to take a good sized chunk of aluminum and spray a test panel with the paint combination. Since I already have a quart of both colors will give that a try and see how it goes.
Last edited by rodsmith; 11-05-2018, 03:41 PM.Comment
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I didn’t mean to discourage you. I just didn’t want it to be surprised and/or frustrated like I was. Now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure we ordered the non-metallic silver. I could check my invoice if you want.
If you want to use silver I’m sure you can make it look great. If I could do it again I’d still use silver but I’d paint all my control surfaces first because they are easy to not strip. Then I’d go straight into painting the fuselage. Once you get your gun distance dialed into muscle memory then you’ll be able to lay down any color and have it look great.Scratch Built 4-place Bearhawk. Continental IO-360, 88" C203 McCauley prop.Comment
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Bob, a member of our local chapter built an RV7. He had never painted a vehicle before. It is silver metallic with some darker gray stripes. He used a PPG product and it is a beautiful paint job, cant find a flaw in it. I was talking to another member, apparently Bob did a lot of sanding and fixing to get it to that point. Guess his plane was my inspiration for going with silver metallicComment
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Since y’all are talking about silver... Several years back, at the STOL even in New Holstein, I saw a silver/white plane that really struck me as striking! At the time, I told myself that if I ever had another plane, it would be that color scheme. Well, I stuck to my promise and the Patrol is silver/white. Lots of folks told me that it wouldn’t work, but I think it’s great. Spraying silver, however, isn’t so great. I sprayed all the small pieces. Some, I sprayed 2 or 3 times... While speaking with a son of a friend, the young man cautioned me about metallics on large surfaces. He paints ambulances, which have BIG surfaces. I asked if he would spray the silver on my fuselage. He smiled and asked when. My fuselage is absolutely beautiful without a streak or mottled spot. It is flawless! Every single smaller piece, on the other hand, has blotches, blemishes and mottling.... If there’s a moral to my story, it’s to find someone who knows how to spray metallics, if you want it to look good. Metallics can be difficult!
BillComment
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Metallic is harder than non-metallic colors. I think a better gun helps . Perhaps NOT an hvlp gun--- maybe the NON HVLP might atomise it better make a more uniform spray
pattern. I found doing your passes over the surfaces alternating between X and Y helps hide the edges of the passes. I expect overspray at the edges of the spray pattern
might cause a distinctive "stripe" at the edge(s) of the pass.
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The thing I found that makes the biggest difference is to shoot fairly light coats when spraying metallics. Every time I spray a wet coat, the particles move and flow and make flaws. Light coats that don’t go down wet seem to look much better.
But I strongly suggest getting an experienced painter, if you want an exceptional finish.
Bill
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Whee;
Getting close? Nice.
I finally met a friend of a friend today that does high end drones. My age. He got his start in the 70's doing RC sailplanes, same as me. He came to my shop to check out my project. He said what are you covering it with? I had to think about how to describe it. They came up with iron on coatings for model planes 40-50 years ago. I had go think about what they called the iron on fabric, it is Coverite. It used to be 5 dollars a square yard. I think it might be 10 dollars now. Compared to Oratex at 150.
I like to paint, but I don't like the 9 hours of prep for every 30 minutes of painting. I have painted a LOT of things. But I still admire a nice paint job. Metallics are very hard, unless you have a perfectly flat surface, at the right angle.
I am going to iron it on, and go flying.
But I still appreciate a beautiful paint job.
Drilled one strut today, the other tomorrow.Comment
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The hardest vehicle that I have painted was a VW bug. So I recommend starting on a flat surfaces until you get a feel for the spray pattern. While a lot of things contribute to a good paint job I would put very very good lighting at the top of the list. A pro can go with muscle memory but the rest of us have to see the pattern we are spraying.Patrol (modified)Comment
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Now I'm really questioning my color choice. I do have a good spray gun, Iwata LVH400-LVB that is supposed to be really good with metallics. I have a partial roll of fabric I got from another builder I won't be putting on the plane. Will make some large panels and practice. Will change the paint scheme to have more green than silver on the fuselage, I haven't yet decided whether to paint or polish the wings. Leaning towards polishing, if I paint them, at least the top surface will be green.Comment
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Rod, Don't compromise on what you want, just find a way to make it happen. I'm sure you can do it with some practice. If you hire a pro to paint the fuselage make sure they practice too. Spraying waterborn paint is unlike spraying a solvent paint.
There is a guy in Montana that does Stewarts workshops. He will travel to you or you can go to him. If I really wanted a show winning paint job I would have trailered my plane to Montana and had him help me. I think he figured about 2 weeks and $2000 for his time if I came to him. Here's a picture of a Stinson he rebuilt.
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About polished wings, 10 years of owning a polished airplane taught me that the worst portion of a plane to polish is the bottom of the wings. It is miserable but you won't need to do shoulder workouts for a long time. If you are going to paint the top then I'd recommend painting the bottom. I'm not painting my wings but I'm not going to polish them either; no need for me to attempt to make my bush beater look like something it's not.Scratch Built 4-place Bearhawk. Continental IO-360, 88" C203 McCauley prop.Comment
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Mark
Scratch building Patrol #275
Hood River, ORComment
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