Re Painting your plane

[Bennie Vorster]

Does any one know if it is possible or how to go aboute to respray or change couler on a Bush Baby.

Cost more or less?

Also, where do I get wheel spats and the cost there for.

[Boet]

Yip. Easy: Take a knife, cut off ALL the fabric, recover and paint: nipple pink, dogshit grey, coffin black, sprinkaan groen, lammerstront geel , of eenkeeriemaand rooi. Maklik.
Repainting will leave you with a HEAVY aerie. NOT goot idea. Go sit quietly into corner and sulk until mood has passed. :D

HOEKOM??

[Boet]

And I make nice wheelpants. Fibreglass. PM.

[Weg]

Bennie

Is it painted with dope or car paint?

[loansharkblv]

Yip. Easy: Take a knife, cut off ALL the fabric, recover and paint: nipple pink, dogshit grey, coffin black, sprinkaan groen, lammerstront geel , of eenkeeriemaand rooi. Maklik.
Repainting will leave you with a HEAVY aerie. NOT goot idea. Go sit quietly into corner and sulk until mood has passed. :D

HOEKOM??

You sure about the weight thing there Boet? I similar thought was going through my head the other day and I also thought that the paint would add quite a bit of weight - One of the local boff's said to me that when the paint dries it loses about 80 - 90% of the "tin" weight.....

Now I am confused............ (nothing really new there)

Comments anybody?

[Arnulf]

Hi,

One of the local boff's said to me that when the paint dries it loses about 80 - 90% of the "tin" weight.....

It depends what paint you are talking about. Losing a substantial percentage of its tin weight is more relevant to solvent based paints. 2K and epoxi paints only lose a small amount of the pack weight when curing.

Regards,
Arnulf

[Boet]

The 2k process that I use is very light. I use ONLY 2 coats of paint on the overall colour. 3 coats where the primary and secondary trim colours goes on. It is true that very litlle of the 2K process consists of solvents. On the other hand, if you go the traditional way and use tinted dope, ready yourself for a LOT of spraying and sanding to obtain even a little bit of gloss..... :D

[Weg]

Fabric covered aeries are not meant to be shiny. And the dope system lasts better - doesn't develop the little "ring" cracking that car paints do. Car paints are made for metal surfaces and not for fabric aeroplanes, even though dope does take more work.

[loansharkblv]

Man that looks nice Boet - Mind if I contact you by phone in the new year for some tips?

[Boet]

Welcome for some tips. We put "plastisizer" in the 2k. It becomes like plastic, and really is very durable. Aeries that I covered and painted 10 years ago, the paint is still flexible. I probably have the formula worked out? :D
The ONLY downside, using poly-u paint is: VERY difficult to patch and repaint. But I have that figured out too....
Added bonus. I did extensive testing on paint and fabric samples. Luck played a big role. NOT any cleverness or smartness from my side. The fabric does burn. But not explosively so, rather slow / progressively. A good trait.
I once saw a paint sample from an aerie that came short. I measured the thickness = .9mm !!! Weeeeelll, the aerie was VERY shiny, but it had hopelessly too much paint plastered on. The "painter" probably have never heard about sand paper and/ or the use thereoff.......

[Morph]

You sure about the weight thing there Boet? I similar thought was going through my head the other day and I also thought that the paint would add quite a bit of weight - One of the local boff's said to me that when the paint dries it loses about 80 - 90% of the "tin" weight.....

Now I am confused............ (nothing really new there)

Comments anybody?

My Challenger's previous owner had the fuse recovered and resprayed. He tells me he saved 15KG weight. When I had to repair the wings (see AUKie in the wars again) I realised that the original builder used pure auto paints and it was incredibly thick. I reckon if I recoverered the wings I would have saved at least another 5KG