Painting The Canopy Frame

[Finley Atherton]

I am ready to paint the outside surfaces of my tip-up canopy (primer and topcoat, wet on wet) and I am wondering if I should leave the layer of electrical tape that has been in place since I first started making the moulding strip or replace the electrical tape with fine line masking tape before painting. The electrical tape is not damaged and there appears to be a sharp line where the tape meets the moulding strip. I am inclined to leave the electrical tape in place and carefully remove it once the paint has tacked-up. What have others done??

Fin 9A

[frankh]

and put a fresh line of tape about 1/8th of an inch higher on the plexi...This allowed me to sand the edge of the filler down to nothing and etch the plexi underneath.

sparyed with primer and then I THINK I raised the tape a little more and did the same thing with the topcoat.

This allowed me to get almost no step between the plex and the paint.

The second step is probably overkill but it works nice.

Frank

[tx_jayhawk]

I have a similar unrelated canopy painting question, but for archive's sake I will ask it here.

* I assume most people paint the enderside of their tip-up the same color as the rest of the interior (not exterior), correct?
* Should the skin, frame, and stiffeners all be painted separately, or have people had good results painting them as an assembly?

Now that I think about it, have others been painting the top of the side rails and canopy roll bar the interior or exterio color? I am assuming all the interior color, but I'm starting to wonder if that looks funny.

Thanks,
Scott
7A Finishing

[robertahegy]

I left the lower part of my interior natural AL, except for the heater box. The inside of the aft skin above the longeron, the panel, the roll bar,and the inside of the canopy frame I painted with a Boulder Grey texured paint from Rustoleum. The AL, grey, pewter velour upholstery with red trim and red carpet looks really nice and very wear resistant.

Roberta