Covering System and Paint

[TJ_Slice]

My build is sitting idle for the time being due to rotator cuff surgery last week. I will be in a sling for the next 3 weeks, and then have limited strength and range of motion for a few months.

I've been working on my wings, and had just started to install the aileron pulleys. I don't think that would be a good place to pick back up.

I chatted with Virgil for a bit yesterday, and decided that covering the ailerons and flaps would be a reasonable place to start up in a month or so.

I am either going to go with Airtech or Stewart for the covering and paint. I am ok with either, but will need to open up a door and ventilate my shop for Airtech, which is no big deal.

My biggest question is about paint. There is a auto restoration/hot rod shop just a couple of miles from my shop that does really nice work. They have expressed interest in helping me paint my airplane. I know spraying Stewarts is quite a bit different than automotive, but what about Airtech?

The owner would basically be doing this out of curiosity on his time off. I doubt I could buy an inflatable booth, and all the equipment for much less than he has said he will do it for, and I would be involved in the whole process.

[jaredyates]

If I were in the same situation, I would probably be choosing between the same two systems. The biggest question I would want to answer is whether I felt like the neighbor buddy was going to be willing to read the directions and follow them. Being that those products are also sold for certified airplanes, they have very thorough and complete instructions, and I have to suspect the application process is quite different from what he's used to. The materials are going to be very expensive. Whether you're doing it or he's doing it, prepare some test pieces of fabric and aluminum, just like you will for the plane. Build a 3'x3' wooden frame and cover one side of it. In addition to being a practice panel, you can also come back later and cut out pieces and use as patch material in non-critical areas. It also matters how much you still want to be friends after the process is over, and whether or not things not going well might come between you as friends.

[TJ_Slice]

Lol, I don't consider him a friend, so that's not an issue. It's basically a hometown discount type of situation.

[Nev]

That's very good advice.

[TJ_Slice]

I guess my question boils down to this: Would you trust a car guy to spray Airtech? Here is an example of his auto work.


HC.jpg

[Jim Herd]

Why not consider Oratex fabric and bypass most of the paint work? Oratex: The Better Aircraft Fabric

I know this material is a bit "unconventional" and requires special materials & techniques, but it also saves about 30 pounds of paint. Total cost (fabric, materials, and paint) is claimed to be roughly equivalent to conventional fabric & paint. My research says there are many advocates, including Bearhawk builders. It is now the standard covering for CubCrafters new ultralight UL model.

Jim Herd
Plans-built Patrol that I did not build

[TJ_Slice]

I ruled out Oratex for a couple of reasons. First is that I want a shiny and fancy paint scheme. The second reason is the stories of problems with longevity and extreme heat.

[Steve W]

If you got a guy willing to spray the smelly stuff in his booth, and the flex agent used in the urethane paint is of a good quality for fabric, ie: Imron, Endura etc then Id say go for it. I would never go the Stewarts route again. Just my opinion from experience. The system up to the ekofil is great. The results after 7-8 years isn’t great.

[N204jh]

Steve, since several of us are in the fabric selection stage, can you elaborate on your Stewart Systems comment? Most people love it and very few have expressed any negative comments about it. Since it's on my very short list, I'd love to hear more. Thanks.

[Dan R.]

Would you have a foot doctor do brain surgery ? Painting a auto and painting an airplane is very different. It will be all different than what the auto painter is used to doing.
A good place to start is get a book by Ron Alexander. He used to have an aircraft supply business and Aircraft Spruce bought him out. We had a business account with his company for many years. https://www.actechbooks.com/0613-CFM-E.html

[Skyward II]

I’m using Superflight. Love it. Air tech is high quality also. Poly fiber good choice also.

Not a fan of Stewart Systems. Expensive. Plus, I looked at a ground looped Patrol recently that used Stewart Systems. The seller had wrapped the aircraft is shrink wrap to transport it from Florida to Kentucky and then hung it in his barn.
It was fully painted. All of the tapes were coming undone from the trapped moisture. No bueno.
How long has Stewart Systems been being used? Any 20 year old planes used it out there?

[Skyward II]

I guess my question boils down to this: Would you trust a car guy to spray Airtech? Here is an example of his auto work.


HC.jpg

Absolutely. Have the painter talk with the Airtech guys and they will point him in the right direction. They are super helpful and want your project to succeed.

It ain’t brain surgery…

[Steve W]

I urge people to read the bad with the good about this topic. Stewarts. There is a lot of both around. You either love it or hate it. No one, I mean no one is gona say negative things about their project they’ve spent thousands of hours on and one thing or another hasn’t worked out to expectations.
I have painted two planes with dope, two planes with Stewarts, and shot a lot of other stuff with urethane paint. If you have a guy who is willing to work with you and has the skill to make paint hang on a vertical surface without running, then he is a brain surgeon in my opinion. It’s surly a skill I do not profess to have.
If the waterborne stuff was easy to apply by people with no skill then the results would justify the price. To me, it’s doesn’t. Here in Canada, it’s going for about 700$ for a gallon of white. It’s not worth the money. My opinion again. Urethanes are half the price or less and if you can find someone to shoot it, you will have a quality finish. Some people have been lucky with satisfactory results. I, personally, have not seen any. Yes the stuff doesn’t smell and is suppose to be safe to use without protection unless you’re spraying it. I am hypersensitive to solvents and when I pushed Andy to disclose what was in their glue, he said there was a little bit of toluene in it.
Like Skyward II mentioned, moisture trapped under anything covering Stewarts is not good. Also this waterborne stuff is not a closed or sealed paint. It stains very easily from grease and anything containing a dye. I used a couple of plastic bags with foam wrapped up inside for cowl plugs. There was some printing on the bags and it transferred into the paint. Took about two years for it to bleach out. You can’t remove non permanent marker ink. Its soft and will work out from under screws and fasteners. Anyway, that’s all I’ll say on that. I’m not a fan.

[Dan R.]

Have painted about 15-18 airplanes, more autos than I can remember. Imron for autos. Airplanes is Randolph. Randolph covers a little better than Poly-Fiber and both are very easy to spray and the same for Imron. Don't use Imron on fabric, gets to brittle. I have a turbine compression that will run two fresh air hoods and two guns. Daughter helps me paint. Now she is 64 years old and started helping me with building homebuilt when she was 14 years old.

[Jim Herd]

First, I will offer my credentials on the subject of painting a fabric plane. My Bearhawk Patrol was several ugly shades of yellow that seemed to be from rattle cans when I took custody of it 2 years ago. So I engaged a professional aircraft painter. Under his direction, my wife and I did most of the prep work of removing the yellow and preparing for red & white aircraft paint. I then observed the painter guy preparing and applying the paint. My conclusion is that most of the work – time & criticality - is in the preparation, and that work is very different for a fabric aircraft than it is for a metal car. (I have a little experience with preparing and painting cars.)

So it may be unwise to select a car painter, because s/he is unlikely to be expert at preparing a fabric surface, and using the specialized aircraft fabric paint materials. Worse, they may feel expert enough to not bother reading the instructions.

The real expertise lies in the preparation steps. Waving a spray gun is relatively easy and rudimentary, though certainly crucial to do it right, and that includes the chemistry skills involved. And airplane paint products are considerably different from car paint products because they have different jobs to do.

As for a shiny finish, it is true that Oratex is more of a matt finish. You can certainly view that as a negative, or rise above “conventional wisdom” and “go rogue” with an unusual look. The semi-opaque nature of Oratex is also unusual, and therefore appealing, imho. I don’t know how they do it, but it is apparently totally protective against UV light.

And regarding a “fancy” paint design, you can add modern plastic film of any size or design you may want. It is kinda like auto “wrap” material that often covers entire cars & vans to advertise a business. This modern material is apparently able to look like new for many years and stay attached. Also, all the metal/carbon surfaces on a taildragger remain available for accent paint designs.

I am not hard over on this, nor defensive about Oratex, but I have studied it. I ordered a new Carbon Cub UL that has Oratex as standard, to save 30+ pounds of paint weight. Conventional fabric is available as an option – I chose Oratex due to the weight saving. I will add that the factory applied the fabric, so I did not need to learn the special techniques & materials necessary with Oratex. So a Builder who is already well familiar with a brand of fabric & paint might prefer to stay with what s/he knows.

My wife designed a rather fancy look in the following way. Red Oratex fuselage. White Oratex wings. Red & white paint design on carbon surfaces (engine cowling). And a flash of applied plastic along the side of the fuselage, similar to a conventional Cub. And a small band of red paint on the white Oratex wing leading edges. Certainly the result is “fancy”. Perhaps a bit “overdone”. The empty weight is 985 pounds, with almost all the options, and the factory said it is the lightest UL they have built so far. And yes, many buyers are going for conventional fabric & paint to get that conventional look.

So, I think if you dig deep and get creative, you can come up with something unique and quite appealing. And save weight.

IMHO. And there are no bad solutions here, if you apply due diligence and hard work, with good expert guidance. Choosing that expert guidance may be the most critical step towards a great outcome.

From Jim Herd

[Skyward II]

First, I will offer my credentials on the subject of painting a fabric plane. My Bearhawk Patrol was several ugly shades of yellow that seemed to be from rattle cans when I took custody of it 2 years ago. So I engaged a professional aircraft painter. Under his direction, my wife and I did most of the prep work of removing the yellow and preparing for red & white aircraft paint. I then observed the painter guy preparing and applying the paint. My conclusion is that most of the work – time & criticality - is in the preparation, and that work is very different for a fabric aircraft than it is for a metal car. (I have a little experience with preparing and painting cars.)

So it may be unwise to select a car painter, because s/he is unlikely to be expert at preparing a fabric surface, and using the specialized aircraft fabric paint materials. Worse, they may feel expert enough to not bother reading the instructions.

The real expertise lies in the preparation steps. Waving a spray gun is relatively easy and rudimentary, though certainly crucial to do it right, and that includes the chemistry skills involved. And airplane paint products are considerably different from car paint products because they have different jobs to do.

As for a shiny finish, it is true that Oratex is more of a matt finish. You can certainly view that as a negative, or rise above “conventional wisdom” and “go rogue” with an unusual look. The semi-opaque nature of Oratex is also unusual, and therefore appealing, imho. I don’t know how they do it, but it is apparently totally protective against UV light.

And regarding a “fancy” paint design, you can add modern plastic film of any size or design you may want. It is kinda like auto “wrap” material that often covers entire cars & vans to advertise a business. This modern material is apparently able to look like new for many years and stay attached. Also, all the metal/carbon surfaces on a taildragger remain available for accent paint designs.

I am not hard over on this, nor defensive about Oratex, but I have studied it. I ordered a new Carbon Cub UL that has Oratex as standard, to save 30+ pounds of paint weight. Conventional fabric is available as an option – I chose Oratex due to the weight saving. I will add that the factory applied the fabric, so I did not need to learn the special techniques & materials necessary with Oratex. So a Builder who is already well familiar with a brand of fabric & paint might prefer to stay with what s/he knows.

My wife designed a rather fancy look in the following way. Red Oratex fuselage. White Oratex wings. Red & white paint design on carbon surfaces (engine cowling). And a flash of applied plastic along the side of the fuselage, similar to a conventional Cub. And a small band of red paint on the white Oratex wing leading edges. Certainly the result is “fancy”. Perhaps a bit “overdone”. The empty weight is 985 pounds, with almost all the options, and the factory said it is the lightest UL they have built so far. And yes, many buyers are going for conventional fabric & paint to get that conventional look.

So, I think if you dig deep and get creative, you can come up with something unique and quite appealing. And save weight.

IMHO. And there are no bad solutions here, if you apply due diligence and hard work, with good expert guidance. Choosing that expert guidance may be the most critical step towards a great outcome.

From Jim Herd

Congrats on the CC UL. Those are incredible performers. 916 Rotax I’ll assume?
However, I can’t accept the 30 Lbs savings on paint as truth. Did they weigh the paint for comparison after it cured or in the can to make this claim?
I understand no company ever bent the truth to boost sales.?

[N204jh]

And it’s just not the paint, but also the multiple coats of fabric sealer and uv protection and clear coat.

[Westward_Flyer]

Congrats on the CC UL. Those are incredible performers. 916 Rotax I’ll assume?
However, I can’t accept the 30 Lbs savings on paint as truth. Did they weigh the paint for comparison after it cured or in the can to make this claim?
I understand no company ever bent the truth to boost sales.?

I believe that a lot of the weight savings with Ortex comes from decreased counterweight needed in the control surfaces but don’t have personal experience with it.

[Jim Herd]

I can only add that I was at the CubCrafters factory and they told me they had 2 almost identically-equipped UL models - one with Oratex and one with conventional fabric & paint - and the empty weight difference was over 30 pounds. So that should take care of all the factors affecting weight, for a true all-up comparison. And this was factory workers talking, not sales & marketing. Same with the guy who did the empty weight measurements and commented that it is the lightest he has seen. That said, it is still about 100 pounds heavier than stated in the brochure, due to a bunch of optional upgrades such as the larger G3X, autopilot, auxiliary fuel tanks, Tundra tires, trim upgrades, etc.

My wife and I are technically the Builders of our Carbon Cub UL, with the amateur build portion approved as 51.046%. "Assisted Build" is an excellent way to get a new plane, and I expect that a similar process with Virgil and his Bearhawk factory will be just as successful and personally rewarding. And just to be clear, my Bearhawk Patrol is awesome! It was very basic when I bought it from the Kit Builder 2 years ago, and I have done a ton of upgrades. It performs almost identically to a Carbon Cub FX3 that I was following around the backcountry of Idaho this summer. That pilot was mentoring me as I learned the area and the special techniques. I have been flying my Bonanza and motor glider all over North America for 25 years, and I think "backcountry" is the most challenging of all personal aviation.

So why did I order a Carbon Cub UL? Mostly as a challenge to learn all the new technology (it is very seductive!), which includes the Rotax 916iS, FADEC, Garmin G3X, Garmin autopilot, Tundra tires, etc. I will keep the Bearhawk for a while, to be sure I like the UL - I certainly don't need both! :-)

[TJ_Slice]

Thanks for all the input, it has been very helpful. I will be calling Airtech tomorrow.