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Darren S

Well Known Member
I've been stressing a bit lately on how to paint my -7. I posted a paint vs. polish question recently and got some great responses. I was thinking about using Stewart's System and either painting the plane or doing a paint/polish combo.

I think I'm going the paint/polish route along these lines

http://www.pilotbill.com/Black-SilverRV.jpg

I was a little leary about the HVLP gun, setup..... screw ups :) so to practice on my interior I went a different route.

Some others have use Rusteoleum rattle cans from Home Depot. I bought a can and tried it on a sample panel on my interior. I didn't find it too durable. After 2 weeks I could scratch it off with my fingernail. Even after etching the aluminum and priming. Then I found a place that puts Automotive paint in spray cans.

Well..... what a difference. There is an aluminum primer in rattle can that is sprayed on first and then the one part Enamel Automotive paint. It smells like the PPG Omni paint I used on my model planes.

It's only been a day, and it's still hardening but I can't dig it off with my fingernail, it is shiny, looks good and has me thinking about doing my cowl, wheel pants and fiberglass tips the same way. No gun to clean, no mess to deal with, no compressor, HVLP setup. Make a booth, lightly sand the part, degrease, primer, sand, topcoat, done ! And it looks good. If I ding it I can touch it up myself.

It's a bit more than the HD stuff. $18 Canadian a can.

Anybody out there ever tried using similar automotive quailty rattle can paint on their cowlings ??

Darren
 
Don't let the paint get too hard before you add the second coat. I tried that type of rattle can paint that they mix up for you and found it worked great except that later for touch up. I sprayed a patch and it all blistered up. Tried some on some scrape, let it sit for a week and tried again. It also blistered. I spoke to the paint rep at the auto store and he told me that there was a high concentration of solvents in the paint to ensure a good bond and that it would attack the base paint.
 
Hi Norm,

So how did you do touch ups with your paint if you couldn't use the same paint in the can ? What areas did you spray ? Same as I'm planning or did you do something else on your exterior ?

Darren
 
I was trying to touch up the interior. Ended up making a mess of it with the touch up. I stripped it and started over. I already had the touch paint mixed up for the exterior and decided that I would not ever attempt to use that stuff on the exterior.
 
Darren S said:
I've been stressing a bit lately on how to paint my -7. I posted a paint vs. polish question recently and got some great responses. I was thinking about using Stewart's System and either painting the plane or doing a paint/polish combo.

I think I'm going the paint/polish route along these lines

http://www.pilotbill.com/Black-SilverRV.jpg

I was a little leary about the HVLP gun, setup..... screw ups :) so to practice on my interior I went a different route.

Some others have use Rusteoleum rattle cans from Home Depot. I bought a can and tried it on a sample panel on my interior. I didn't find it too durable. After 2 weeks I could scratch it off with my fingernail. Even after etching the aluminum and priming. Then I found a place that puts Automotive paint in spray cans.

Well..... what a difference. There is an aluminum primer in rattle can that is sprayed on first and then the one part Enamel Automotive paint. It smells like the PPG Omni paint I used on my model planes.

It's only been a day, and it's still hardening but I can't dig it off with my fingernail, it is shiny, looks good and has me thinking about doing my cowl, wheel pants and fiberglass tips the same way. No gun to clean, no mess to deal with, no compressor, HVLP setup. Make a booth, lightly sand the part, degrease, primer, sand, topcoat, done ! And it looks good. If I ding it I can touch it up myself.

It's a bit more than the HD stuff. $18 Canadian a can.

Anybody out there ever tried using similar automotive quailty rattle can paint on their cowlings ??

Darren
Click to expand...
I've been thinking along the same paint scheme for my plane. My thought was to rattle can the top of the fuselage in front of the canopy (maybe matte black), and then take the other parts (fiberglass bits, maybe empennage) to a paint shop for them to shoot it. I figure it'd be a lot less expensive than painting the whole plane, especially if I do a lot of the prep, but I could still get a professional job done on those parts.
 
I used the Dupont Chroma polyurethane base coat/clear coat on the exterior of my RV-7A and discovered the blistering problem on touchups. The solution was to prep (sand), spray a light coat of clear coat to seal the surface, then go with the base coat followed by clear coat. Final sanding left a blemish free finish. My interior used the single stage polyurethane and touchups were not a problem.
 
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