Might be painting a plane

[94touring]

Fuselage stripped and primed.  Getting tired of sanding.   50.gif   

[94touring]

Painted the fiberglass wingtips and elevator tips.  First time spraying AE and I'm not 100% satisfied with how it came out.  The smaller pieces are fine and should buff to the right amount of gloss I want, but I think I'll be sanding down and spraying the wing tips again.  Think I had the gun too far away, came out kinda dull and orange peely for my taste.  Better to practice now on the small pieces than be hating life when I paint the whole thing half assed.  If I could find the camera charger I'd be posting pictures of this.     

[94touring]

My elevator tips color sanded and buffed out really nice.  I re-shot the wing tips and played around with my gun settings and reducer quantities and got it to come out looking good.  I think I'm prepared to do shoot the plane now.  ;D

[Minicop]

  If I could find the camera charger I'd be posting pictures of this.     

It's ok. We can just envision it.  4.gif Sounds like it's coming along nicely.

[joltfreak]

 :D

[94touring]

Found the charger, now to remember to take the camera.  The project is coming along nicely.  There were tons of pot marks on the roof where the sun oxidized the primer, so that took a lot of time getting getting worked out, especially with rivets in the way.  Primer was on there tough unlike most of the flakey paint on the rest of the plane.  I've spent a ton of time sanding around all the rivets, thousands of them in fact, lol.  But now all thats really left is to continue the final sanding (320 grit and scotch brite around rivets) on about one half of the plane and she's ready for spot primer where I sanded through and paint.  Its all in the prep is certainly the case here.  50 hours prepping with about 50 minutes of spraying.   

[94touring]

I'll have some paint on it this week.  Spending the weekend painting the nose of another plane. 

[MiniGene]

Are you doing this all with the same spray gun you use for the Minis?  Didn't you get it at HF?  Can't wait to see the pictures. 

[94touring]

Well the gun I primarily use is not from HF, but one I bought a few years ago that was around $300 if I remember correctly.  I do have a detail gun I use thats from HF and another gun I use sometimes for primer from HF, both work good.  Actually the detail gun works really good and was only $15.  I have to primer the horizontal stabilizer on the Arrow and another strip around the windscreen, both sections still needed more prep.  Then its ready. 

[MiniGene]

Ah.  Are you working outside or in a hanger?

[94touring]

The big project plane I'm working outside, the other plane I sprayed today in a hanger with a pvc pipe frame made into a paint booth with plastic.  I kept the front of the booth and nose of the plane close to the front of the hanger and had a really good vented system going outside with a 20x20" filtered box and fans on it and one on the other end, making it a cross flow and catching any paint in the process.  As luck would have it not ten minutes after I finished spraying the clear a bad storm kicked up, blowing water inside the 2 foot crack in the hanger door.  Water got on top of the plastic and bowed it downward, till water spewed through the line where the sheets of plastic met up in the middle.  The end result was about a half gallon of water on a nice paint job and me going home pissed at the world.  So tomorrow I get to sand out the water spots on the clear, roughen everything up, and shoot clear again.  However I did have a random tiger stripe in the metalic blue paint pop up during clear coating, so I can fix that while I'm at it.  Still kinda baffled why, as it looked fine before clear.  I may have shot the clear too soon, not sure.    

I also have parts to another plane I'm going to be spraying here at my house when the guy gets his paint materials.  Elevators, stabilizers, flaps, rudders, ailerons, wing tips, and a few other odds and ends.  Plus I'm guaranteed not to dump water on the parts when I'm done.        

[MEhinger]

An interesting story and it sounds like a real challenge. Will you be changing the site name to restorationplane?

[94touring]

Here are some pics after tearing down the booth this morning right after spraying it again.  The blue is what I had to paint.  This plane is a Seneca for the airplane challenged.  I have a charter the 17th in the Seneca I fly to Vegas, or as I like to call it, paid vacation.  Also some pics of the wingtips for the Arrow. 

Restorationaeroplane, I like it.  ;D

       

[94touring]

Some progress pics.  Will be nice when I get the blue on the lower half!

[94touring]

Started filling pin holes on the cowling today to prep that for paint.  Looks like I'm going to have just barely enough white paint.  Hoping to have the blue on there next week depending on my regular work schedules.  Also looks like I picked up another side job painting parts on an airplane.  Word sure does get around fast. 

[MiniGene]

I'm not surprised!  Now that you are in Arizona do you know how many times I have thought of commissioning you to do my Mini's body and paintwork?  All you have to do is look at your previous work to see that you do quality stuff.


Now that I have thoroughly kissed your a$$, I will be expecting a discount if I do have you do my body and paint work!  LOL

Keep up posting the pics.  They are very interesting to see.

[94touring]

Lol, I'm always interested and am pretty fair on the price.  Now's probably good a time as any since I have more time to play cars and planes than I do actual work.   ;D

I should mention I got up at 4:30am and headed to the airport to lay that white paint on outside.  Nice and calm out and not 1000 degrees.  This acrylic enamal made it possible too, no way I could do it with clear coat.  It dries fast enough you can get away with a lot.  I would have ended up with a bunch of bugs and dirt all over the thing once the helicopters started dropping in around 9am if I did base/clear.   

[94touring]

Got the top cowling painted white today, among other odds and ends like the prop dome.  Put some tips on and its starting to look like a plane.  Next week hopefully blue and done...after some buffing of course. 

[94touring]

Looks like tomorrow the blue goes on, minus the lower cowling which still needs much attention.  Got my lines masked off today and the belly all prepped up.  Was fun trying to mask uniform lines on both side the whole length of a plane!

[94touring]

Todays work....

Next is fixing the lower cowling and buffing things out to a better shine. 

[94touring]

Spent the majority of the day color sanding and buffing to a perfect shine, and I'm still not even half way done!  Wore out a couple pads on the buffer even. 

[94touring]

Have been sidetracked with other work, but did take the bottom cowling off and may have it painted tomorrow.  The top cowling was thrown off the plane as the result of a helicopter landing beside it.  I was pissed.  Landed it rocks and took a beating.  I also have a garage full of parts from another plane I need to paint, maybe this weekend. 

[94touring]

Ordered tail numbers and decals today.  And currently doing these parts for someone...

[94touring]

Not a big fan of the paint for these parts.  It runs like a mofo! 

[MiniGene]

What is different about the paint that makes it hard to work with?