Dad's RV-10

Dad's RV-10

Well Known Member
Still in the dreaming phase, but trying to educate myself as much as possible.

If going with the ?slow build? fuselage, is it practical/feasible/possible to prime and finish paint the interior of the fuselage prior to assembly? Seems to me this would be the easiest way to thoroughly clean and prep all of the surfaces and apply an even finish coat.

I suppose you will suffer some scratches during assembly, but touching-up still seems easier than trying to clean, prep, prime and paint the canoe once assembled.

TIA.

Brad
 
IMHO, I'd paint as I built. It will be tuff to paint the entire inside later. I've not done it yet but that's my plan as well unless I hear of something better.
 
I painted all the cockpit parts before assembly. It definitely slows down the building, but the thought of trying to paint inside the canoe seemed too much for me. Besides, I like the look of all the unpainted rivets.
 
There is absolutely no problem in waiting to paint the inside until it is assembled. Just do it before you start working on the canopy, panel and forward top skin that might get in the way of the forward side skins. (This is when Van's specifically suggests doing it in the manual and it seems to be good advice. Much of the interior parts--seats, some of the floors, baggage bulkhead, etc.--can be taken out and done separately anyway. Good luck.
 
Interior Paint

I'm at this stage right now. See http://adap.com/RV7 on the fuselage page and you'll get an idea. I'm not seeing this as a big deal at all. Most of the interior parts have been fitted including canopy, forward skin, all interior panels, fuel pump, vent lines, and brakes. It was just fitted, now it's all out for prime and paint, then goes back in for good. It might take a little longer, but I don't have to worry about getting the interior paint all scratched up during construction. I basically set aside about a month and a half (workign about 6-8 hours a week) to get everything deburred, dimpled, primed, and painted before our wet NW weather sets in.

Jim
 
paint as you go

If you use tough primer and paint, it won't get too scratched as you build. With my QB I had to paint after it was all together, obviously. The main problem was really cleaning out the canoe before painting. The spray gun blew dust that was hidden in corners everywhere. Most of the interior will get covered by something eventually, so it's not that big of a deal.
 
Paint it when done ... ours was so bad looking after our test phase, we had it striped and repainted with the plane.
 
Suggested "tough" paint/primer

Mickey,

Do you have a suggested tough paint/primer? I'm planning on using a PPG single stage paint for the interior as well as exterior. Is that tough enough for interior?
 
....and you can always cover up the primed surfaces with a blanket to help cut down on the wear.
 
I just finished painting my interior after fitting the panel and tip-up.

It wasn't so bad. Of course it is going to take me a few days to put everything back in it, including the wiring I had already installed.

The primer was all scratched up and I wanted it to look nice as I move forward. Of course, now I have to be extra careful not to scratch the new paint (again).
 
I just painted the interior of mine last week. I waited about as long as I could before doing so. I wrestled with this same question quite a bit. I can't imagine having all the interior parts painted before the canoe is assembled and most of the interior and top (canopy and forward upper) had been at least fabricated and pre-assembled.
 
PPG Paint

Sid Lambert said:
Mickey,

Do you have a suggested tough paint/primer? I'm planning on using a PPG single stage paint for the interior as well as exterior. Is that tough enough for interior?
Click to expand...

Sid:

I used PPG Concept series on my interior and it is one tough paint (just try sanding out a run). This is a two-part system. I wouldn't hesitate to use it all over the aircraft. (My paint shop preferred to use what they were familiar with for the exterior -- AcryGlo from Sherwin Williams -- and that looks great as well).

I painted my interior after I had prefitted most of the interior components but before putting anything in place permanently. This worked very well as you have more access to the interior than at any other time. The only items that got scuffed up much post-paint were the floor panels that have to be removed a number of times as you continue to build. Most of the scuffs are covered up by interior pieces so you'd have to look hard to spot them.

Chris
 
Air UPSer said:
Still in the dreaming phase, but trying to educate myself as much as possible.

If going with the ?slow build? fuselage, is it practical/feasible/possible to prime and finish paint the interior of the fuselage prior to assembly? Seems to me this would be the easiest way to thoroughly clean and prep all of the surfaces and apply an even finish coat.

I suppose you will suffer some scratches during assembly, but touching-up still seems easier than trying to clean, prep, prime and paint the canoe once assembled.

TIA.

Brad
Click to expand...

Brad,
I'll second Mickey's recommendation to prime/finish paint prior to riveting the cockpit together. I'll further recommend the following. DON'T rivet the floor ribs to the rear wing spar bulkhead as recommended by Vans and George O's video. Drill and fit the cockpit & rear baggage floor skins while the fuselage is still upside down in the jig. If you are building an 8A, the forward belly skins can be drilled & fit in the jig as well.
Essentially, I'm saying to build the nearly the entire fuselage (certain parts like the turtle deck & glare shield skins can't be done in the jig) in clecos. This will save a GREAT deal of time later. It allows you to disassemble the drilled/clecoed fuselage from the jig and do ONE massive deburr & dimple session. Once the parts are dimpled, you can take care of Alodining (if desired) priming and finish painting of the cockpit interior as one big session. Doing this type of work in small sub sections is inefficient, as time is wasted setting up/breaking down tools, Alodining dip tanks/ mixing paint and cleaning the spray gun.
If you are considering making your floor skins removable, it also allows you to fit all your nutplates with the floor ribs out on the bench. If you do this later, you will be standing on your head trying to do it. Fitting nutplates on individual parts on the bench will:
Reduce work
Improve quality of work
Ensure that ALL holes are drilled/deburred/dimpled BEFORE the parts get Alodined and primed.
Use a mil spec epoxy primer and your favorite brand of polyurathane finish paint. These products are incredibly tough. It is much easier for the neophyte painter to get good results when he primes and paints the pieces individually. It allows you to lay the skins and parts out horizontally while priming and painting. It is much easier to get a run or sag when painting items which ar vertical.
Charlie Kuss
 
After thinking about it for a bit I remembered an additional reason I chose to prepaint the interior. I've been using AKZO primer on the whole project and this presented a problem on the cockpit.

Let's suppose I entirely prime all the pieces before assembly and then paint much later. This AKZO stuff is specifically designed to resist solvents, so you can pretty much forget about any kind of chemical bond between cured AKZO and the finish paint. The solution would be to thoroughly scuff the whole cockpit prior to paint to acheive a mechanical bond. However, this would be a royal pain to do correctly and would create gobs of dust in little nooks and crannies. On the other hand, if I leave everything completely bare until after assembly, how do I get primer and paint on the mating surfaces?

In the end I chose to paint before assembly and everything worked out great. There was no significant damage to the paint and it all looks real good.
 
Here's what I did, just yesterday...

Hi Brad,

I just finished painting the interior yesterday. I'll post some pictures tomorrow here. I am not an expert, but here is what I did and my logic, use it as a reference point in making up your own mind.

1) I primered all of my seat/baggage ribs and bottom skins COMPLETELY before assembly. I figured if any ABNORMAL moisture is getting in there i.e. rain it will settle on the bottom, together with dust etc. hence a little more care on the bottoms. The tops are not getting any.
fuse_36.jpg


2) Then I primered only the mating surfaces of the sides and forward floor, before assembly. I knew that I will be painting everything again at the final stage, So I did not want to primer things twice, since I used an epoxy primer. All the sides were scotchbrite before assembly to cut down on scotchbriting when done. I don't want to paint my piping that is why I did it little earlier than Van's suggest. It does mean I will have to put the wings back on to finish the piping, but that?s the way I wanted it.
fuse_38.jpg


Note the sides have a coat of primare on the mating surfaces, before assembly, but the whole surface i.e. everything was scothbrited before assembly.
fuse_37.jpg


3) After the fuse is together, after you mated the wings as per instructions, but before any piping work, before front deck work, before canopy work. I painted. I only had a little of scotchbriting to be done on the previous primered surfaces to get a key. It took about 3 hours to mask everything off. I did not want to paint my firewall. I ran a thin coat of primer and followed with a good 'enamel' top coat. All the loose components: Seat forward, forward covers, flap actuator covers will be done loose. I used a Darkish Silver colour. I am tired of the trusted grey, but dark silver is also very neutral, but adds a little finesse.

<I'll post a picture of the final result here tomorrow>

Now that everything is painted I will take super care not to scratch it.

Kind Regards
Rudi
 
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only prime?

regarding painting the interior, are we only talking about the cockpit and baggage area, or are we talking about all the back inside the fuselage?

Has anyone considered only priming the interior? The self-etching primer I use is matt grey. I imagine it wouldn't look too bad (I think fighter plane cockpits are often just painted grey). This would save a bit on weight, cost and effort. Are there reasons why this would be a bad idea (i.e. just a couple of coats of primer all through the cockpit and interior?
 
As promised here are some pictures of the weekend's paint job...

Masking everything off, about a 3 hour job...
paint_03.jpg


Then Paint, a nice dark silver, I am tired of the trusted grey, this gives a little finesse, but still stay neutral.
paint_04.jpg


The Interior Results, but the pictures don?t do the silver colour justice.
paint_05.jpg

and
paint_06.jpg


A nice Panorama picture of the Painted interior?No the longerons on the right hand side is not bent or croocked :D, it is a picture artefact of taking many pictures and turning it into a panorama picture.
paint_07.jpg


Regards
Rudi
 
Looks good Rudi. Did you roll the fuselage on one side or the other to paint the interior or was it upright the during the whole process? Seems that there are some awkward angles to paint if it were upright throughout.
 
rjsflyer said:
Looks good Rudi. Did you roll the fuselage on one side or the other to paint the interior or was it upright the during the whole process? Seems that there are some awkward angles to paint if it were upright throughout.
Click to expand...

Hi Rick,

No it was upright for the whole prossess, and I still have the backpain from the weekend to proove it :( . Getting into some corners needs some very funny extending of the arms and back. I can see how having the fuse on its side or even better on a rotisary stand can make this process much easier. If you have the money to spend or borrow someone's rotisary stand it will make the painting and some other small tasks much easier.

Regards,
Rudi
 
prkaye said:
regarding painting the interior, are we only talking about the cockpit and baggage area, or are we talking about all the back inside the fuselage?

Has anyone considered only priming the interior? The self-etching primer I use is matt grey. I imagine it wouldn't look too bad (I think fighter plane cockpits are often just painted grey). This would save a bit on weight, cost and effort. Are there reasons why this would be a bad idea (i.e. just a couple of coats of primer all through the cockpit and interior?
Click to expand...


This primer/insulation/protective coating thing can get crazy so I decided to make a compromise, I plan to put the gray self-etching primer anywhere two metal surfaces make contact and anything that is not Alclad. The rest of the plane will be untouched on the inside. This may be a bad plan - only time will tell.

As for the interior of the cockpit I plan to use a PPG paint. There's a neat way to "spatter" the white and dark gray individual beads of paint giving a non-uniform coating OVER a solid layer of gray. A lot of work but the end result looks too cool.
 
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Thanks for all of the great responses. Lots of food for thought.

If/when I move out of my apartment and relocate to a suitable building environment, I'm quite certain I will build an RV-8 Fastback.

I like the idea of preassembling the fuse with cleco's and then doing one massive dimple/debur/prime/paint session. Seems like a very efficient game plan.

For the time being, I'll continue to read and educate myself.

Thanks again!

Brad
 
when to Paint interior

I built an RV6 and painted the interior after construction but before plumbing or finishing. I actually wore through the interior finish before completing the panel. I had to refinish the cockpit side rails three times before I got smart and covered all major wear points with scrap sticky back vinyl shelving paper (stolen from my wife). Even then I crawled in and out of the cockpit so much I tore that and ended up with three layers of vinyl on high wear points but it worked. It was strippable but left a slight glue residue in some places which came off very easy with 3M adhesive remover. It did save the paint which will scratch and wear wheither you paint before assembly or after. I would also suggest a texture paint so touch up would appear seamless rather than patched because there is still a lot of work remaining meaning a lot of opportunity to damage the paint.

Dick DeCramer
N500DD RV6 0-320
155 wonderful flight hours
Northfield, MN
 
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