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Batch Priming Setup

echozulu

Well Known Member
I did a quick search and found some photos but not a lot. I'm looking for recommendations or experience on how you prime your parts, specifically in large batches.

It took me to doing the tailcone to finally overwhelm my little table that I used previously. I use rattle can primer and would prime one side, dry, and flip it over to prime the other side.

I'm not planning on painting myself so a positive pressure paint booth seems kind of overkill. My current plan is to get some twine and string it between two points in the yard like a clothesline. This will allow me to get both sides at once and then let it sit and dry. The problem I have is the place I live is near the ocean and rains a lot. So I'm looking for some sort of portable solution like a garment rack that I can push in and push out.

Any pictures or suggestions would be appreciated!
 
Priming

I've got a few options. My "Go To" is my storage barn. I set a cheap baby gate on two saw horses and spray. P60G2 dries really fast so I can flip pretty much after the last pass.
Option 2 is for bad weather.
I have conduits strapped to my garage door frames. They are strapped so the doors still operate. I can suspend all sorts of stuff. My temporary paint booth is several shower curtains hung from the conduits plus on the floor and a ceiling. I use a bilge blower and dryer hose connected to a wall dryer vent in the garage. Same baby gate and saw horses are used as a down draft platform. Takes only a few minutes to set up and take down for a session.
I recently purchased a HobbyAir positive pressure respirator as an extra precaution.
 
My experience

I tried suspending my parts from a make shift clothes line during one of my priming sesions. It didnt work so well. The parts were hard to hold with one hand as i sprayed with the other. The PG60 drys so fast it is just easier to spray on chicken wire, wait 10 min, turn over and spray again. I found a lazy susan helps too.
 
I built a really crude wooden frame with some chicken wire attached. I would drag out my empty trash cans, put the frame over it, and then lay down the parts. Mind you, I live in a warm climate where this worked just fine 12 months of the year. At the end of the build, my trash cans were all fully primed. :D

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Another tip: mix up just a bit more primer than you think you'll need, and when you fill up the spray gun, leave a little bit out. You'll find after spraying, you might just need that little bit extra to get it all covered. Using the two part epoxy primer and having to wait 30 minutes for it to induce correctly was a pain at times.
 
I used one of the VANS shipping crates with some chicken wire as a make-shift spray table. For larger parts, I also use a piece of plywood with a 1x1 nailed along one edge that I can put on some saw horses.
Tried hanging things from wire but air from the spray gun pushed them around a bit. Still a necessary evil for some of the torque tubes.

Plenty of ways to make it work.
 
I?m really happy with the results from a quick trip to the hardware store for some PVC pipe, and half inch chicken wire, all pulled tight with some zip ties. Works great for shooting down through, weighs next to nothing, and I made it 7.5 feet long, so I could lean it up against a wall, vertically, if I ever needed to store it that way.

Bit of a side note, as Larry mentioned, I?m been using a HobbyAir for 10 years now, with the full hood, and love it. Huge viewing area, protects the whole face, including the eyes which get missed by normal respirators.

I?m following Larry?s past advice on parts prep, and using the P60G2 primer, and have found that it?s all I can do, to clean the parts, and fill up my sized screen, before my 2-3 hours are up, and I need to be painting, before the recommended time that the aluminum oxide would start to reform. So really, I don?t think having a bigger screen would do me any good, so far.

Thanks,
Lance

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Similar

I found similar things to the other posters above. Eventually I made a "table" similar to Lance's, but I used a piece of leftover reinforcing mesh which I covered with chicken wire and I stand that on two sawhorses. I safety wired the chicken wire to the mesh, which gave me lots of practice with the wire and pliers.
Living in Oz the weather is usually pretty good for painting, though typically I spray on the wire mesh under my shed (with respirator on), give them about 20-30 minutes then hang outside in the sun or in the top of my shed from a rack to fully dry. I haven't used epoxy primer yet, just a good quality etch primer from a 4l can that I thinned down to spray. Whatever wasn't used I just poured back out of the gun into a jar for next time.
 
I primed almost all my small parts with self-etch primer in rattle cans. Hanging stuff on hooks is a guarantee of frustration for me; the parts take on a life of their own in the breeze from the spray can.

My favorite option for small stuff is an old aluminum window screen. Nothing can fall through it, and it's open enough to keep the air blast from moving the parts around. I just set it up on a couple of saw horses, garbage cans, or whatever else is convenient. If the sun is shining, I set up outside and the parts are dry enough to flip within a few minutes. I can then pick up the screen with all the parts still on it & carry it inside, if the weather is threatening.

BTW (in an attempt to freak out all the space shuttle builders here), a dishwasher with plain old (NON-no-streak additive) dish washing detergent is great for oil/dirt removal. I used it to prep for alodining my smaller substructure parts, and the alodine came out great.

FWIW, from a decidedly non-professional....

Charlie
 
Okay, LOL, don't laugh. See link to see what I've done. https://www.dropbox.com/s/r1t5pgizstkzf34/IMG_1950.jpg?dl=0

HAHA...but hey it worked actually pretty well. 20in x 20 in filter inside that I changed every paint job. The box fan in the back actually drew the air pretty well.
And my P60G2 primer application results were a billion times better than Vans quick build job that I got. Like not even comparison.
 
Screen for primer

I see a lot of posts and pictures that show a screen to hold the parts. How useful is that vs just laying on cardboard or newspapers. For just priming the tailcone parts is it worth it? I plan to use a HVLP gun and just not sure if I should go the extra step and build a 4x8 or so screen. I?m all for having the right set up if it makes it go a lot easier. Thanks
 
Baby gate

I see a lot of posts and pictures that show a screen to hold the parts. How useful is that vs just laying on cardboard or newspapers. For just priming the tailcone parts is it worth it? I plan to use a HVLP gun and just not sure if I should go the extra step and build a 4x8 or so screen. I?m all for having the right set up if it makes it go a lot easier. Thanks

Go to Walmart baby section. Buy a cheapo baby gate. Instant collapsible down draft spraying table. Mine is caked with primer and still going.:D
 
YMMV, but anything solid under small parts has always made a mess for me when spraying small parts. Anything really small gets blown around by the spray, and into the wet surface caused by the overspray.
 
I see a lot of posts and pictures that show a screen to hold the parts. How useful is that vs just laying on cardboard or newspapers. For just priming the tailcone parts is it worth it? I plan to use a HVLP gun and just not sure if I should go the extra step and build a 4x8 or so screen. I?m all for having the right set up if it makes it go a lot easier. Thanks

100% worth it. I did the first batch on the cardboard that comes under the skins. After chasing shear clips and doublers around I made a frame out of wire grid and furring strips. I put that on top of a couple of saw horses.

Things still move a bit but not nearly as bad. I use a piece of wire (insulation clip) to hold the really small stuff down.

And the parts don't stick to the top like the cardboard.
 
Small parts

I'm cheap.
I cut a 4' furring strip and drove brads every 2" then cut the heads off. Virtually every small part has a hole in it. I just slip them on the nails and spray. Flip and spray. It actually works great to keep not so tiny parts from blowing around.
 
AKZO Consumption

Chris,

I am about as low on the skill set as they come and have not yet learned about optimizing. Some of my spray is too thick, although I'm getting better.

To your point: I have used about 0.25 gal (out of a standard 2 gal kit) of AKZO on all internal parts of an RV-10 horizontal stabilizer.

Larry is a wealth of information on this topic, really heed his thoughts.

I hope this helps.

Larry, I've used a number of your ideas and will do so with your suggestion here about spraying small parts... ..great idea!

Best regards,
Mike
 
Chris,

I am about as low on the skill set as they come and have not yet learned about optimizing. Some of my spray is too thick, although I'm getting better.

To your point: I have used about 0.25 gal (out of a standard 2 gal kit) of AKZO on all internal parts of an RV-10 horizontal stabilizer.

That's about on track with where I'm at. I just measured and I have approximately 80% left after the VS, HS, rudder, one elevator. So I have about 200oz left/used 56oz.

I just sprayed the left elevator a couple of days ago and it took right at 12oz of material (5.5oz for the internal parts; 5oz for both skins; 1oz discarded). I've probably thrown out about 12oz in total.
 
Thank guys. The issue I?m having is getting the products/shipping costs. So I want to purchase as much as I can at a time to control the shipping costs but also watch the shelf life so I?m not wasting.
 
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