Silver Exterior Paint

For those who have painted their RV's in a military scheme using a base coat of silver, with markings applied over, I have a couple questions:

1) What type/ color did you use for the Silver (do you have a link to a photo)?
2) For national insignia markings, did you go with appliques or mask/paint? Are you happy you went what-ever way you went?

Thanks,

Jim

Lots of shades of silver to pick from

There are a lot of silvers. I would pick a paint system for your plane first, Jetglo (Sherwin Williams), PPG and so on. Than you can use their standard color pallet catalog from their line of colors to choose from.

A real custom color line paint line is House of Kolor. They have all kinds of types of paints and the most custom colors to pick from. The big factor is a light sliver (towards white) and darker silver (towards gray). I doubt there is an official military silver and if there is, I doubt it would look good on an RV, at least to me (ie drab).

My guess is if you want a real authentic look it will be drab, a flat silver. Do you want a dull military flat silver or do you want a metallic, candy or pearl for more flash or pop? I was going silver but decided on RED.

A good source to pick a color from is automotive. Silver has been the hands down winner of the most popular color for cars for many years now. You can just go to a parking lot; you will see some nice and not so nice slivers. White I guess is taking over from silvers long run as most popular car color, no doubt followed by another popular color next year. There are so many silvers to choose from. Check the luxury car brands for silvers to pick from.

I think you really want at least metalic not flat, but that is my opinion.

I was thinking about polishing but decided against that. I'm somewhere in the middle of the silver shades, not too dark, not too light, and I don't want it to look grey. My anticipated shop is using Imron for the metalics right now but use PPG for solids.

Silver

jim:

Go to your local auto paint store or collision repair center and check out their paint chips. The one that I chose was the Mercedes Benz color "Brilliant Silver". You might like that one.

Jim, I was able to see Scott Chastain's "Descending Dove" first hand at Oshkosh this year, and it looks amazing. For now, I think I'm going to plan on using the same paint system and silver color as his. Here's a quote from the PM he sent me:

Scott Chastain said:

I used PPG Deltron two-stage acrylic urethane for the entire exterior...the colors are Chryser colors: Viper Red, Prowler Silver."

Click to expand...

I have polished my 6, I am looking at a product by ALSA called mirrachrome. Looking at it on their website, it looks like polished aluminum. It is pricey, but I don't think I would need that much, just fiberglass parts. Might check it out.

Oh, which silver to use?

Hey Fellas:

Good thread -- I'm looking to spray a C45 (to protect the aluminum, more than anything else), and getting that much silver wrong would not make me happy.

My plan:
Check out some paint chips, and pick the silver with the least amount of black in it (to get the lightest/brightest color). I used 1994 GM fleet silver on my 1st Rocket -- the one with silver and black on it, and it turned out pretty well indeed. I'm gonna look at that one 1st, and go from there. My preference is single stage (weight on that much surface area is considerable -- probably 300 lbs or so?), tho base/clear is striking, and easy enough on a smaller subject.

Remember,if you goof up (runs, sags, etc), you cannot sand out any metallics. Hire a good gun man before mixing up any final color coats.

Nuvite makes a good polishing system, and a std buffer can be used to polish the ship. I did a couple pieces of the Beech, and even tho the starting point included quite a bit of sfc corrsion, it went OK and the final product was actually acceptable. Starting with a newer RV would not take any more time than a paint job would, and would allow for a lighter ship...I just don't have the energy to polish an acre of 65 year old aluminum... especially when about 40% would be on the bottom.

Carry on!
Mark

F1Boss said:

Remember,if you goof up (runs, sags, etc), you cannot sand out any metallics. Hire a good gun man before mixing up any final color coats.

Click to expand...

Why not Mark? Do you mean you can't sand at all, or just that you have to sand the whole panel because it would be impossible to match/touch up an small area?

AntiGravity said:

Why not Mark? Do you mean you can't sand at all, or just that you have to sand the whole panel because it would be impossible to match/touch up an small area?

Click to expand...

I tried to sand out a run in a silver panel -- the sanded area turned grey. I asked about this, and the 'no sanding on metallics' response came out. So, that's how I learned that lesson.

If you look at the ships that are painted here, you will see a succession of primer/camo jobs. That sort of easy application displays my (lack of) gun talent. Just about anyone can shoot primer, and I'm living proof!

So, just about ANY amount of touch-up is impossible, with me as the gunner. I know a few I could call to handle the gun for me, and I will, if I decide to go with the silver, that's for sure!

Does this help?

Carry on!
Mark

Alsa Corp

Ahhhh. Right.
I was going to see about using Alsa Corp Mirrachrome or Killachrome on my Grove gear legs, but my change in plans for the overall scheme may mean they just get painted in metallic gray like the lower fuselage.

I wish to hear experiences of those chrome paints... painting those fiberglass parts with stuff like that might be interesting, but it they don't look like metal or more precise polished aluminum are they that cool anymore.

I talked to a guy named Gary at Alsa about the chrome paints. He said the Mirrachrome is a best match for polished aluminum, and the regular ghost chrome is a good match if you want to keep the aluminum more natural--it's less reflective. He said the key is in the application--prep works is similar to painting, but you start with a black undercoat. He said you need to put it on in very--he said the word very a few times--think coats. If you put it on thick (said like regular paint) it will not have the same shine and Mirrachrome will look more like the Ghost Chrome. Here are a couple of shots he sent to me from a guy who built an amazing RC F-86 and painted it with the Mirrachrome.
[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]

Yep, it's going to Mirrachrome for me. Little pricey, but what the hey? I watched their demo shoot and I think I can handle it.

CNEJR said:

Yep, it's going to Mirrachrome for me. Little pricey, but what the hey? I watched their demo shoot and I think I can handle it.

Click to expand...

There's a guy named Steve at hardlifestyle.com who e-mailed me back today and said the MirraChrome was the one to use to get a polished aluminum look. He said he's done a ton of custom painting with it (including chroming 50 cent's Lamborghini) and also said he was more than happy to provide any technical support needed to get the right look. They're a distributor for Alsa but also do a lot of custom painting with it--maybe a good guy to look up before you get started. His e-mail address is [email protected].