Finalizing Paint Scheme

[MichaelFarley56]

Did the same with mine except I used vinyl wrap instead of paint. I can't say enough about the process. It's much cheaper, you can do it yourself, and you can do it without taking the airplane apart. All fiberglass parts on mine are painted and the rest is vinyl. I have about $1000 in total materials to do the vinyl and I did it all myself. Everybody that has seen it thinks it's paint, kinda fun to watch their reaction when I tell them it is vinyl.

Sean, thanks for posting. Just out of curiousity, what sort of vinyl did you ultimately use? Any pointers you could offer for those who may have an interest in going that route?

Thanks!!

[jjbardell]

Did the same with mine except I used vinyl wrap instead of paint. I can't say enough about the process. It's much cheaper, you can do it yourself, and you can do it without taking the airplane apart. All fiberglass parts on mine are painted and the rest is vinyl. I have about $1000 in total materials to do the vinyl and I did it all myself. Everybody that has seen it thinks it's paint, kinda fun to watch their reaction when I tell them it is vinyl.

I'd love to see some closeups on your vinyl wrap. I have considered vinyl, but don't think I could easily do that. I heard there are a few companies that use lasers and just print everything and can wrap the entire plane but I believe the cost is really expensive. Anything you can share regarding supplies, how-to's etc would be much appreciated. Your plane looks fantastic!

[saddler]

I used 3M 1080 vinyl. It is used for color change vinyl wraps on cars. There are endless amounts of colors. It is really not that hard to work with. I played around with a few pieces to get the feel for it before I started on the airplane. The secret to the whole thing was a product called knifeless tape. Best advice I can give anyone is spend a little time on YouTube looking at vinyl wrap car videos. There is a ton of information and how to's including how to use the knifeless tape. It really is like magic. I did a demo at our local eaa meeting using a polished part of my airplane and we played around with some vinyl and the application process. When we were done, we just peeled it off. Everybody seemed to really enjoy it.

[jjbardell]

Sean, How did you work around every rivet so there isn't a bubble on each one?

[saddler]

The vinyl will stretch around the rivets. The best advice I can give you is to make sure the area around the rivet is absolutely clean. My airplane is flush riveted so it was a little easier but I still have some screw heads and domed rivets to work with. There is a tool specially made for working the vinyl around rivets but I didn't use one because I didn't have that many to deal with. It is meant for wrapping trailers with dome head rivets.

Btw, as mentioned earlier I vinyl wrapped the bottom of my fuselage and wings so I wouldn't have to deal with polishing the bottom. They even make chrome vinyl that I seriously considered instead of doing any polishing but the chrome sample I bought, the material was really thick so I chose not to add the weight.

I bought all of my supplies from http://www.fellers.com. Cheapest place I could find and free shipping over $99. They sell small samples of every color so I would recommend getting a few samples and playing with them.

[DCASonex]

Have not sen your plane, but along the lines of what was suggested about painting the bottom, and assuming yours will be kept in a hangar, instead of looking at what gets dirty, look at what is easiest to keep polished. Upper horizontal surfaces, wings, tail and fuselage are very easy, vertical surfaces of tail and fuselage also fairly easy. I painted under side of my wings and tail and top and bottom of all the, hard to hold for polishing, movable surfaces, ailerons, flaps elevators and rudder. Once you get a good polish, touch up once or twice a year is all that will be needed. Can further extend interval between polishing by keeping upper horizontal surfaces covered while in hangar. I used several cheap picnic table covers with fussy backside, from Wal-Mart, taped together into panel for each surface. NOT suitable for outside use, but no problem in enclosed hangar. Pockets formed in ends of covers using duct tape, for wing and tail covers. Couple of very small strategically located pieces of Velcro and elastic straps help to hold it in place. If trying to save maximum of weight, leaving bottom surfaces unpolished will not be noticed when on the ground, but having a darker color when viewed from below will help improve visibility in the air. Highly polished surfaces act like mirrors making plane look like the surrounding sky. brighten it up with some obvious bold patterns in places Have had some comment that the most visible part of mine is the white stripes on dark blue of the flaps when they are lowered.

David A. Sonex TD