Paint 1 : Mind 0

[the4hens]

I'm in the middle of painting my RV-6. In my research of the process I found that you should never use liquid detergent. Is the dawn you're using liquid? My process for the exterior of the aircraft is to wash with powder Tide and maroon scotchbrite. Rinse thoroughly and check for a smooth water break (no beading). Spray with epoxy primer, base coat and then clear coat. The only time I got fish eyes is when I've had to sand and re-clear coat. The fix for that was to wipe with mineral spirits followed by a damp clean towl and plain water. Granted I'm doing this in AZ where humitity is low but the temperatures have been from 50 F to 85 F.

[dwrichey]

I agree with Mike S. on the need for a desiccant type filter immediately before the gun, that solved my similiar issue. After acid etching, I would suggest you simply alodine, rinse with water, let dry, and then paint. The small plastic desiccant dryer/filters can be reused by placing them in a toaster oven, on low, for several hours, as they are kind of expensive in my opinion.

[NukkleSamwich]

alodine wont work unless you acid etch the aluminum first.. other wise all you have done is trap "gunk" under the alodine.. which then becomes dusty **** and falls off

[tomcostanza]

Syringe rubber?
Hello

I had the same in the beginning of the project. I was using a syringe with a rubbertip to get the paint and hardener out of the can.

These rubber had a lubricant that created "fisheye".

Only use a syringe with a plastic seal/tip.

Good luck,

Dominik

Dominik, you might have won. I am doing this, and this might be why it has only happened recently. I may have not used a syringe previously. I previously had been mixing much larger batches of paint. Now I'm down to mixing only a few ounces at a time. I'll report back on this thread in the next few days.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this...
Doctor: Don't do that!

[AF_Alan]

One more possible cause to consider/eliminate...I recently saw similar on my parts when painting in more humid, cooler temps. It was condensation (from my breath) misting out the exhaust port on the respirator.

[Andrew M]

I have used compressed nitrogen when the available shop air was suspect. Works great for small jobs.

[woodmanrog]

In my limited but successful painting projects I found a few things that seem to always work. First, I use an HVLP paint system which virtually eliminates any moisture from the process. My second rule is to never use any prep other than sandpaper followed by blowing any dust off with the HVLP filtered system. If I need to go further in the cleaning process, I use an approved tack cloth. Good Luck.
Woodman

[tomcostanza]

Many thanks to all for the good advice. I repainted with the epoxy primer. Eliminated the syringe from the equation, and no fish-eye (special thanks to Dominik). While I'm not ready to claim victory, I'm optimistic.

[swisseagle]

Hello Tom

Hopefully you got it!

I just remembered when I saw your pictures ... I had exactly the same, sorted out all the known stuff, but could not fix it. Then once when i was mixing up an additional "testbatch" ... I was looking at that syringe ... I took a new one and they look even more like some kind of "wet" when I open the plastik ... I had before allready good batches, but from time to time the bad one came back! Always when I was using a new syringe. After a while, you will get less and less fisheye, untill you take an new syringe again.

So I throwed away all the rubbertip syringe and banned them from building place!

Best regards, Dominik

[selhardt]

Today I shot the 2nd batch of primer and fish eyes everywhere.

Guess what was different?

Yup - I used a big syringe to pull paint.

Sheesh - thanks Dominik I know what I will change first!