Well, this weekend I am experimenting with topcoats. I have selected Nason Ful-Thane Single Stage made by DuPont. Nason is the "also ran" line they offer. Kinda like a commercial grade paint.
The Ful-Thane is supposed to have great durability, ease of use and offer a good finish. All the things a cockpit paint needs to be!
The test bed is this JEEP bumper I had made over the past year. It is pretty cool. I couldn't buy one with all the features I wanted, so I built it my damn self! It holds air, has 4 lighting tabs, a Reese receiver for maneuvering my boat into tight places, a winch plate and is WICKED BEEFY!
I figure this environment is much more demanding than the interior of my plane. It is a ferrous substrate, in a salty environment that is also subject to mechanical damage.
It doesn't get much more demanding than that!
I sandblasted (or more accurately, the kids did... credit where credit is due!) it today, will scotchbrite the holidays and solvent clean it next.
Saturday afternoon, I will hit it with DuPont VariPrime and then apply the top coat, Nason Ful-Thane!
Thermos is coming down to help me and maybe a couple of other builders will join in on the process!
I will keep you posted as to the quality of the application and the subsequent durability!
CJ
Last edited by captain_john on Tue Jun 20, 2006 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
I learned some stuff about painting today and if you are interested in listening, I will tell you what I learned.
We all know that VariPrime is not a "sealing" primer and that it is porous. Does anyone know what that means or the impact that it has on the material? I didn't until now.
The fact that it does not seal means that, if TOPCOATED it will trap air under the NONPOROUS urethane top coat and bubble/blister.
This means that we need to SEAL it before topcoating.
My steps are as follows:
1) Media blast the bumper. This removes the mill coating and generally cleans it up.
2) DA sand with 180 grit to create an adhesion profile.
3) Solvent clean the material to be coated and suspend it for coating.
This allows me to fully access the entire component for even coating.
4) Prime with a self etching primer. I am using DuPont VariPrime.
I ran this past my buddy who is a coatings guy and he says I am on the right track. That was comforting.
I want to eliminate the sealing step for the cockpit, so I will be looking into Primer/Sealers for that when the time comes around. Until then, this should prove to be an interesting experiment!
Wish me luck!
CJ
RV-7
Garmin G3X with VP-X & a TMX-IO-360 with G3i
It's all over but the flying! 800+ hours in only 3 years!
Well, Thermos and I shot the bumper today and I must say that I am thrilled with the quality of the Nason products!
The system worked as planned and now all I need to do is wait for it to dry and install it!
I have no doubts that I can paint this plane myself! I will work my way up starting with the interior cockpit components and then get the gumption to do the smaller (empennage, flaps, ailerons and cowling) parts. The wings and fuse I will get assistance with, I think.
Now I just have wait for the test of time to take the toll and see how it performs! That is the real test. Any idiot can shoot a paint gun!
CJ
RV-7
Garmin G3X with VP-X & a TMX-IO-360 with G3i
It's all over but the flying! 800+ hours in only 3 years!
I've been slacking it lately; haven't done a thing for three weeks. I'm just starting the rudder. So, there's lots of good stuff that gets posted and discussed here that may be useful to me in the future, but isn't relevant now. When you guys get into details about wing and fuse construction, even with pictures, I often don't know what the hell you're talking about. But, I hope to be able to search the archives for those discussions when I'm actually working on those parts.
Painting, to me, seems so hopelessly far off into the future, and I know so little about it, that I can't really contribute anything useful to this thread -- not really even relevant questions. But that doesn't mean your efforts aren't going to be of value to me later.
I think we've all googled something we're confused or uncertain about and ended up at some other builder's website. Maybe it's just one pic and a sentence or two about how he did this or that, and maybe it predates the punched-hole kits, or it's a different RV model, but it ends up being enough info to help us move forward.
A lot of builders who used to hang out here, judging from the archives, sort of drifted away once they started flying. And maybe they have thorough and elaborate builder's log websites that they no longer pay much attention to. But all those ramblings and musings contain sprinklings of gold dust to keep idiots like me from ending up with an expensive and frustrating pile of, uh, "test parts" as someone said recently.
I know there are a lot of airplanes that have been built from scratch by one guy in his barn out in the middle of an Iowa corn field, with nothing but a static-filled "late nite radio" (RIP Mr. Denver) program from a distant metropolis to keep him company. But the historically low completion rate for homebuilts, says I, is due to the lack of a comprehensive and cohesive support network.
All you guys with a group of other local builders are blessed. Wandering over to the next guy's hangar or shed or basement or workshop to borrow a hand, a tool, some experience, some consolation, some encouragement, some fresh perspective, is really a prime contributor to the completion rate we're seeing these days.
I came close to having something like that, but things change. Rivet Bangers dot com is my primary support network. The openness we all have about our screw-ups and confusion and frustration, and every other aspect of this fearsome undertaking, is enormously helpful to me.
So you keep posting stuff like this, CJ, and don't sweat those grade school smart alecs who tease you for dressing for the weather! There's some guy in Iowa saving nickels towards his dream of building a plane, and ten years from now he's going to wonder about paint, and he's going to read your post and benefit from it, along with many others about whom you never heard. Just don't flour bomb his barn while the paint is still wet.
And remember to come back here in five years and let us know how the bumper is holding out after a few seasons of boat launching.
Cool, well that is good to hear. I am doing this mostly for archival purposes. There will come a time when I say to myself, "Which product did I use on the bumper?", and the answer will be here! I will need this info later, just like you guys.
BTW, another thing to add...
I have found this Primer Sealer from Nason and I plan on using it for the next set of fuselage components.
Then there is this Epoxy Primer. I suppose it is like the PPG stuff Thermos and many others are using.
The thing about epoxies is, you don't want to leave them exposed to UV's. I am told that they tend to "chalk up" in sunlight.
CJ
RV-7
Garmin G3X with VP-X & a TMX-IO-360 with G3i
It's all over but the flying! 800+ hours in only 3 years!
This is actually a great post with lots of useful info in it. I appreciate the time you have spent giving us some of the details. If we can all learn a little from each other hopefully we won't end up with as many "practice parts".
I'm not sure I would agree with your statement that anyone can run a paint gun. Actually I may be living proof that it is not true. That doesn't mean I won;t use all my resources to get it figured out though, and one of those resources is this board and this post. Keep up the good work!
Hopefully you realize the above post were done tongue in cheek.
prestwich wrote:<snip>
I know there are a lot of airplanes that have been built from scratch by one guy in his barn out in the middle of an Iowa corn field, with nothing but a static-filled "late nite radio" (RIP Mr. Denver) program from a distant metropolis to keep him company. <snip>
<snip> There's some guy in Iowa saving nickels towards his dream of building a plane, and ten years from now he's going to wonder about paint, and he's going to read your post and benefit from it, along with many others about whom you never heard. Just don't flour bomb his barn while the paint is still wet. <snip>
prestwich,
Hey! I represent that! I sure hope it isn't 10 years before paint though.
JohnR
RV-7A - Fuselage - SOLD, just not supposed to be
Numbers 6:24 - The LORD bless thee, and keep thee
Hey! I represent that! I sure hope it isn't 10 years before paint though.
I figured I wasn't going to get away with that... I actually grew up in Wisconsin and one of my best friends out here in Kookyfornia was from Iowa. We used to rib each other about our roots.
Many years ago, my parents came for a visit. My father was a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls. But boy, did he look like an ignorant hick. I mean, he had the fur-lined hat with the ear flaps and chin strap and everything. One flap usually was tied up and the other one was sticking out at a 90 degree angle.
He smoked a pipe held together with electrical tape and his glasses were always crooked because the frames were so mangled. He wore a wool scarf whenever it was colder than about seventy degrees, to "keep the draft off" his neck.
One place I took them for a visit was UCSB. The student working the campus entry kiosk took a look at my dad and asked "Where y'all from, Iowa?" I wasn't sure whether to laugh or get out of the back seat and kick the kid's teeth in. But of course I told the story to all my friends, and the line became a slogan.
After that, whenever anyone in my group of friends did or said anything even remotely unsophisticated, someone was bound to inquire: "Where y'all from, Iowa?"
So there's my story, John. Now get back out there in the barn, fire up the horse-drawn compressor, and buck a few.
CJ
CJ
CJ
CJ
CJ
Actually I may be living proof that it is not true. That doesn't mean I won;t use all my resources to get it figured out though, and one of those resources is this board and this post. Keep up the good work! 
CJ