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Painting the Spinner?

claycookiemonster

claycookiemonster

Well Known Member
While my overall paint scheme must wait until everything is completed, I have wanted to paint the spinner now for the motivation of it. But, then I began to consider this. Surely the spinner is subject to the worst conditions of the entire airframe. It is the first thing to get to bugs and other airborne contaminants, and then it's also spinning furiously. Given that. is there any special considerations when painting it? More coats of paint? Special paint? Does the balance of it need checking before and after to ensure I'm not introducing wobbles?
 
. Given that. is there any special considerations when painting it? More coats of paint? Special paint? Does the balance of it need checking before and after to ensure I'm not introducing wobbles?
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No, it gets less abuse than you suspect…..I just painted mine again, you’d really have to do a bum job to introduce out of balance. No clear coat either, just 2k paint for me.
 
If it were me, I'd wait until the rest of the plane is ready for paint. There are SO many things needing to be done to get the plane ready to fly and to go through Phase 1, so I'd focus on those first. You're going to spend a lot of time and effort to shoot paint on one small part--and your vision of a paint scheme may change between now and when you decide to paint everything.

Just my two cents, as you can obviously do what makes you happy.
 
Painted mine with a good can of rattle. No issues what so ever. as far as bugs go I think the wings and cowl take the biggest beating.
 
Last spinner I painted on our Bush plane was done with it sitting on a table lazy-Susan and rattle-can paint. Quick, easy, looks fine, and doesn’t even collect that many bugs (are they flung of the surface by rotation? Who knows…..).

Currently having a new spinner painted for our RV-3 by renowned artist John Stahr (to match the existing paint job on the airplane) - that is a bit more extensive, with base, airbrush art, and clear coat.
 
I have a carbon fiber spinner from Catto that looks beautiful except for the small blush I gave it when I dropped it admiring how beautiful it was! As said, it rarely gets bugs on it and almost never needs to get washed.
 
I painted mine on a lazy-susan also. Put a short 4x4 upright on the lazy-susan and perched the spinner on it. Beats trying to run in a circle around your spinner.
Did it with my HVLP gun with the fan turned sideways. You have to rise up as you make a pass so that you keep the gun roughly perpendicular to the surface to be able to spray down on the nose of the spinner as you finish each pass
Do not succumb to the temptation to spin the lazy-susan as you are making a pass. Make a vertical pass, turn the lazy-susan, and make another pass.
 
This may sound redneck but my spinner painting setup is a piece of 3 inch pvc pipe sticking out of a cheap 5 gallon bucket. A little bit concrete in the bottom holds the pipe and gives the whole thing some mass so it doesn’t tip over.
 
Five gallon paint bucket. Put some water in it to ballast it. Jam the spinner over the lid. I set the bucket on a stool for height.
 
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