Painting your airplane

[Rolly LSA]

How did you paint the wings, Struts, Cowlings, etc. of your airplane. How did you fix the part so you could paint it? Thx. RC

[Bdflies]

I made a rotisserie for the fuselage, which was used for covering and all painting. I lined up smaller parts on 2x4's, supported on saw horses. Control surfaces were hung from a wood frame. The rotisserie was then adapted to hold the wings, processing through prep / primer / top coat, one wing at a time. Pics attached.

All this took a while....

Bill

[BTAZ]

Most parts I simply hung from my rafters with bent welding rods if all surfaces needed painting. For small parts that wanted to "blow around" while painting, I generally put a second welding rod through another hole on the part and added weight to that rod so the part wouldn't move as easily. Many of the aluminum trim parts fell into that category.

If only one surface needed painting, I put them on a large table laying on cheap plastic drop cloths. In between coats I would change out the drop cloths(something like 99c/pc at WalMart) to make sure the next painting operation didn't stir up any over spray left on the drop cloth.

For the wings, I bolted a snug fitting 2x4 between the strut attach brackets for the root end and a similar thing(with some strategic use of various size blocks) on the tip end. That end is a bit more tricky as you have to get blocks snugly against the front/rear spars inside the wing that then bolt to the 2x4 on the outside of the wing.

In the center of the end 2x4's I put some grab handles I had laying around. I then suspended the wing from my rafters with ratchet straps(make sure they are new and undamaged) tied to these handles. At the ends I put in a couple of eye bolts so I could then rotate the wing as required and used a couple other pieces of rope from the rafters to the eye bolts to hold the wing in whatever angle was needed.

[Flygirl1]

Dennis and I did just about the same thing as Bill did, except we did not have access to the really nice looking paint booth!! Very impressive Bill! Our was built from 2 x 4's and plastic sheeting hung--everywhere except the floor. We highly recommend fans pushing air in and taking it out--and lots of filters at both ends. It seems it was very important to make sure the booth was pressurized to keep the exit fan from brining in dirt and dust. But I can't tell you how many story's we heard how this person or that person painted outdoors, on dirt floors and so on with no problems. If you type in Prekote" in the search box there is a thread about prepping for paint that Dennis posted a yr. ago you might find interesting. Donna

[jaredyates]

Each type of part was its own challenge. For many small pieces I used a table-sized piece of 1/2" hardware cloth, which worked better than a solid table because the air and paint can pass through between parts. Lots of pieces were able to hang, sometimes with the help of clecos. For example, put a cleco in from the unpainted side, then tie a string around the cleco body. I also built a rotisserie for the wings. On the fuselage I used four 2x4s arranged like a tic-tac-toe board in the front, attached through the engine mount bolts. In the back I made up a fixture that bolted on in place of the tailwheel spring, which then rested on a sawhorse or hung from the ceiling. It took about a year from the first paint session until the last.