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For those of you who have painted your airplanes, I'm curious how much weight it added to the airframe. I know there can be quite a difference between a one color, single stage paint and a multi color base/clear, so I'm curious what actual reports are. I've heard numbers anywhere from 15-50 lbs so I'm just curious.

Thank you!

I painted mine with a three color base coat / clear coat and my best guess is around 25 pounds. It is going to be tough to get had numbers because many people don't weigh their plane before painting. My finished weight was 667 lbs.

Keith
#554

You going to the dark side Mike?

Thanks Keith. I sort of guessed it would be a bit of a challenge for the reason you listed. I was just curious.

Good question Bryan; I haven't decided yet. I'm starting to think about it. I've got several tiny dings on my skins and it drives me nuts that I can't hide them. I've also come to the realization that no matter how many hours I spend polishing, I'll never be done. After a long winter my entire airplane was covered with light oxidization which is requiring going all the way back to Nuvite F9 to get rid of. I love the polished look, not to mention the weight savings, but the amount of time it takes to keep the finish up is getting excessive.

If I knew a PPG single stage polyurethane would only add 15-20 lbs I'd seriously consider it. We shall see...

15 to 20 lbs seems about right. I painted my plane before final assembly and did the W/B after so I really don't know.

We are finishing wrapping Mike Neidenthals plane this weekend with vinyl wrap and will do another W/B and have some good numbers from that.

Mine weighed 14lbs or nearly so. But I didn't put the clear coat on, which I suspect would add at least another 5lbs.

MichaelFarley56 wrote:Good question Bryan; I haven't decided yet. I'm starting to think about it. I've got several tiny dings on my skins and it drives me nuts that I can't hide them. I've also come to the realization that no matter how many hours I spend polishing, I'll never be done. After a long winter my entire airplane was covered with light oxidization which is requiring going all the way back to Nuvite F9 to get rid of. I love the polished look, not to mention the weight savings, but the amount of time it takes to keep the finish up is getting excessive.

I feel your pain (and my plane is not even finished yet).

I started off polishing, I had completed the V-tail, H-tail, rudder, elevators, ailerons and flaps. They were polished to a near mirror like finish, I was very happy with the results at the time.
I wrapped them in blankets for storage when I moved onto building the fuselage.
A year or so later (maybe 2, time flies when building an airplane), I unpacked the tail again in order to match drill it to the fuselage, I was shocked at how much my polish work had deteriorated already even though the parts had been nicely stored away.
During fitting of the tail I scratched the polish work even further just by handling it, it was going to need a full second polish job already!
That's when I said, NO WAY! I am not willing to keep polishing the plane over and over and over again. Hence I decided to paint from then on.
Also, Since I made the decision to paint I have made a few dents here and there along the way (plus a major oops dropping an aileron recently), such mishaps are easily hidden with some bondo on a painted plane :-)

My paint is a 2 pack polyurethane, 1-2 coats primer, 1 topcoat (at least for white paint on white primer). No clear coat, so I hope the result is pretty lightweight considering.
I get great shine when I'm handling the spray gun well (not always the case but getting better at it).

I am really thinking about vinyl wrap. I read somewhere that it was lighter than paint.


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Tmdarkansas wrote:I am really thinking about vinyl wrap. I read somewhere that it was lighter than paint.

Are they still saying it lasts about 5 years? That would be a dealbreaker for me, esp at the prices it typically costs.

How much does vinyl wrap cost? I was thinking about that as an option for my Onex...