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Interior and Instrument Panel Painting

Bdalporto

Active Member
A friend and I are just starting our finishing kits and I was wondering what people are using to paint their instrument panels and interiors. I saw the "From the Ground Up" shows on TV and remember a textured paint he used on the interior. Does any body know what paint that was? Another friend of mine with an RV-9A used Rustoleum Hammer Tone paint on his panel and it looks nice and I thought I would use that, but I'm still open to suggestions.

Brian Dal Porto
RV-7, IO-360
 
Brian

I tried rust-o-leum...but didn't like the results on my panel. So after cleaning off the paint I took it to a local powder coater and had it powder coated. Look great and is very resistant to scratching but my wallet is $40.00 lighter!!!! I used AFS water borne one part white paint on the interior.

Frank @SGU RV7A Engine/FWF
 
I've had very good luck with Rustoleum over Napa 7220 primer. I painted my interior with Rustoleum Professional stainless steel color, which has a slight texture, in December. 9-months and lots of tool drops (and getting in and out) later, it's holding up really well. No qualms about recommending it except that Rustoleum does seem to take a long time to cure. I generally give things two weeks (give or take depending on temperature) before I'm confident that they've fully cured.

In general, I think there are two schools of thought, each with advantages and disadvantages:

1. Get really tough/durable powdercoating or high-end paint. Advantage: It's tough. Problem: Expensive and when you do need to touch it up, you're not going to be able to do so very easily without it being obvious that you touched it up.

2. Use paint out of a spray can, preferably with a little texture. Advantage: Cheap and if you ever need to touch up, the texture will allow you to do so very easily. Disadvantage: may not be as tough as the above and you may be more likely to get scratches.

As you can tell, I'm an advocate of the second approach. No matter how tough your paint/powdercoating is, it will eventually scratch, chip, or scuff. I'd rather have the ability to touch up later.

Just my .02.
 
Option 3 is to use a paint that is more durable on the interior rather than spray paint. I am using Sherwin Williams JetFlex interior paint. My interior came out with a nice slightly textured finish. The paint is tough (duct tape won't rip it off) and it cleans up nicely with a light solvent (such as lacquer thinner). Touch up is easy too. Applying it is easy too. The stuff I used is water dissolvable which makes cleanup a breeze.
 
I'm with Steve on this one. I used Rustoleum for the interior and a textured Rustoleum on the panel. The standard gloss rustoleum does take a while to cure. Dries in 24 hours but needs several weeks to really harden into a tough coating.

Get a plastic spray can trigger/handle. My finger tip was numb for a month after the first substantial application.

Jekyll
 
I used SW JetFlex Water Based on top of PPG DPLF primer. I second the fact that it's easy to clean up and seems to really tough. It's a semi-gloss or satin finish so if you're looking for high gloss it may not work for you. I did the interior with this and then the panel was powder coated with Cardinal. Seems to have matched up very well. I'm really happy with the way this turned out.
 
I also used SW JetFlex. It is a close color match to Van's powder coat, and seems to show every fingerprint. If you use it, you may want to go with a darker color. On the positive side, you clean the gun with water, so it's less toxic.

Hope this helps.

Clear skys,
 
Bdalporto said:
A friend and I are just starting our finishing kits and I was wondering what people are using to paint their instrument panels and interiors. I saw the "From the Ground Up" shows on TV and remember a textured paint he used on the interior. Does any body know what paint that was? Another friend of mine with an RV-9A used Rustoleum Hammer Tone paint on his panel and it looks nice and I thought I would use that, but I'm still open to suggestions.

Brian Dal Porto
RV-7, IO-360
Brian: I believe his textured surface actually the result of the tip he used, rathre than the point. But, yeah, I'm using the hammerede finish and I'm pretty happy with it.
 
Hey guys-

I am currently attempting to redo the interior of an RV6 my pops and I bought a couple years ago..

The builder did some things we obviously would have done differently..

Firstly, the floor of the bird was, what appears to be Super 77'd and then had a thin layer of foam laid down and then a layer of "carpet." I use the term carpet lightly..

Anyhow, I have pulled up all this "carpet" and foam and am down to just the bare metal..

We are trying to decide the best route to go for painting the floor and add some sound deadening..

I thought something like the DIY Rhino Liner type paints would make for a great flooring, but we don't want it too "grippy" as to make it hard to fly the plane with our heels sticking..

Anyone have any ideas?

Right now the entire interior is devoid of any sort of carpeting, etc.. It's all bare painted metal..

Thanks

Jeff
 
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