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Interior painting

Any suggestions on how I should paint the interior? Should I do it one piece at a time or wait till everything is assembled and tape it off and paint or what??
My fuselage kit is due here Wednesday without the center section which will be shipped when they have one. Also what brand paint (if any) should I use?l I am not going to do any priming other than the parts that require it. Thank you in advance for your response
 
Ken-

I decided to paint all my interior parts prior to riveting. I felt it would yield a better finished job than trying to spray nooks and crannies without creating any runs or dry spots .... plus not needing to worry about trying to avoid touching wet painted surfaces while spraying in a confined space. I don't mind that the interior rivets are bare aluminum, as it does not seem to detract from the paint job.

For the paint I used Sherwin-Williams JetFlex WR (water reducible) interior paint. JetFlex requires a little learning curve, so if you go the JetFlex route, spray on some scrap first to get you and your spray gun dialed in. After a couple of weeks JetFlex totally hardens and is tough as nails. It dries to the touch about as fast as regular paint, but will not be totally durable for a couple of weeks.

I would use JetFlex WR again ... it is a very good choice for the interior.
 
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Interior paint

What John ^ said.
I also painted parts. I wanted rivets and screws to show. Jet Flex SB over P60G2.
If I did it again, I would spray Kirker Enduro Prime and leave it. It comes in white, gray & black. It's a 2K Epoxy. Hard as nails when it cures. Easy to match and touch up. Cheap.
 
On both of my airplanes, I pulled the removable panels and painted them off (or out of) the airplane. But the stuff that couldn't be removed? I sprayed it at the canoe stage.
 
I followed Larry's approach. I painted the pieces that I could and then I delayed as long as I could to paint the remainder of the interior. There is actually quite a bit of prep work with masking the firewall and etc. so you only want to do it once. I still want to go back and touch up a few places but in general I think JetFlex WR is pretty forgiving. The good thing about painting pieces first is you can use those pieces to get your gun setup and figure out your dilution ratio. Unbelievably I didn't have any runs while spraying the interior. I sprayed basically one side at a time. You have to reach over to spray the opposite side so that method worked for me.
 
We painted ours at advanced tadpole/canoe stage. Consider how much interior covering there will be as you don't need to paint there.

I suggest base and lacquer because it is simpler to apply. It is standard auto paint.

The base is a single part product thinned to your nozzle as appropriate. It sprays semi matt and is very forgiving. You then shoot the 2k lacquer over the base - here you can choose gloss, semi matt or matt clear coat to suit. It sprays well and can easily be applied in multi layers for protection on heavy wear surfaces.
 
Summit Racing SUM-UP347Q

Any suggestions on how I should paint the interior? Should I do it one piece at a time or wait till everything is assembled and tape it off and paint or what??
My fuselage kit is due here Wednesday without the center section which will be shipped when they have one. Also what brand paint (if any) should I use?l I am not going to do any priming other than the parts that require it. Thank you in advance for your response

The builder of the RV8 I'm flying (standard build) painted the interior panels mostly before riveting or screwing. I like the look of unpainted fasteners. He used Summit Racing SUM-UP347Q dark gray Hot Rod Flat paints. I would call it a lighter/medium gray. It's a 2-part 2k urethane product that is extremely durable and easy to spray/use. I'm been upgrading some parts on the plane during the new engine install and experimenting with applying it along with some dry transfer labels. I'm using a flat clear over the dry transfers. I can't speak yet to the durability of the clear (also a 2k 2-part urethane ), but I like the look of the gray flat interior (a bit spartan/military looking) and has held up very well with a few hundred hours of use. I like it and will use it on the plane I'm building.

Here is the left panel that covers the fuel selector. I did get permission from Vans to use the logo. Kelsey Hickman was kind enough to send me a high res image.
 

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What John ^ said.
I also painted parts. I wanted rivets and screws to show. Jet Flex SB over P60G2.
If I did it again, I would spray Kirker Enduro Prime and leave it. It comes in white, gray & black. It's a 2K Epoxy. Hard as nails when it cures. Easy to match and touch up. Cheap.

Larry, is the Jet Flex SB a flat/matted finish or gloss?
 
Where To Paint (Interior)

I also am expecting my fuselage (also not to include the center spar section). After reading the posts, I am considering painting parts as I go. I am ordering the full interior trim package and do not know exactly what the panels cover. I do not want to waste time and paint spraying areas that will be covered up. Does anyone have any info or, better yet, detailed pictures of the interior trim package installed?
 
Jet Flex SB

Larry, is the Jet Flex SB a flat/matted finish or gloss?

The standard colors are all semi flat or matte. I added flattener to the gray. The solid black is only sold as flat. It's pricey product. Catalyst has limited shelf life so keep it in the shop fridge.

By the way, Summitt and Eastwood are rebranded Kirker paints. I use the UltraGlo single stage Urethane on exterior fiberglass over EnduroPrime 2K epoxy. So far, so good.
 
Thank you for responding

Thank you everyone for responding to my question. It sure makes me feel good knowing that I can ask a question and there are so many people willing to take enough time to share their thoughts and experiences in a very polite and generous manner. Just shows the quality of person that is involved in aviation. Thanks again:)
 
The standard colors are all semi flat or matte. I added flattener to the gray. The solid black is only sold as flat. It's pricey product. Catalyst has limited shelf life so keep it in the shop fridge.

By the way, Summitt and Eastwood are rebranded Kirker paints. I use the UltraGlo single stage Urethane on exterior fiberglass over EnduroPrime 2K epoxy. So far, so good.

The Summit colors I'm using are actually rebranded TPC Global paints. Perhaps they use both, but mine are TPC Global. https://tcpglobal.com/
 
I painted the parts of the interior prior to assembly and I'm happy with the way it comes out with unpainted rivet heads. I used the JetFlex WR and it does need a bit of time (~48 hours) to completely harden before you rivet.
 
JetFlex/Unpainted fasteners

I did the basic "military" spartan flat gray Jetflex water based interior paint, with panels painted individually and unpainted titanium screws. Every screw is same size, so no confusion. Much easier to do touch-up, replace or modify individual panels. I love the beautiful fancy interiors I see, however, my mission was light and functional.
 

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Pictures of the final clear coat

I have the same idea for my interior, would you send me some pictures after clear has been applied. I am curious to see how the decals look after clear has been applied. Also how durable it will be.

Thanks
 
Paint Now

I just finished painting my interior (QB kit). I decided to paint now vs. later. The main reason was I didn't want to do all the taping necessary after it was done. I hired someone to paint it for me using Lesonal (made by Sikkens).

I did all of the prep which took me at least 80 hours. It included the metal prep, cleaning and taping. I cleaned the interior and all of the piece parts with two Lesonal cleaners. Then I sanded (he calls it abraded) everything with two different scotchbrite pads - remove all the alclad. Then I cleaned it again with the two cleaners. We moved it into the paint booth. Then I vacuumed it and blew it out. Then we cleaned it again with the two cleaners. Final prep was a chemical treat and then time for paint. It is a really involved process to get a professional job.

He painted it with six coats - two sealer, two base, two matte clear. It turned out better than I could have hoped. There isn't any way I could have done this and gotten the results he did. I plan to leave all the rivets unpainted. At least that is my plan now.
 

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I'm not sure what the deal is. Those pics view fine on my PC before posting. If you click on them they view fine. But for some reason the thumbnails don't view correctly. Do I need to do something different in my post?
 
I painted interior after completed all riveting to cover everything with common color coat. I did this as I decided I was going light with no interior except seats. This added several months to my build since I had lots of wire, instrument panel, and control cable routing to remove and then reinstall. I think it looks great. All steal tubes on control system I added a touch of black to the light gray color to make them a contrasting darker gray color that looks very nice. The finish is bullet proof using several coats of PPG 2-part Concept. No interior made a few pounds lighter and easy to clean floors.
 
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