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Following Dale Williams’s example I decided to attempt the “roll your own” method of painting my aircraft.
From what I can see in the pictures I think Dale’s paint job looks great, a lot better than some amateur spray paint jobs I’ve seen so far and being an amateur (at best) myself I think I’ve got far more chance getting reasonable results using the roll-on method.
I’m going to give it a go.

First problem I ran into was the paint itself, the marine Signature Finish product Dale and others have used to accomplish this job is not available here in Australia so I needed to look for an alternative.
First alternative I came across was Brightside Yacht paint, I have not found any examples of aircraft having been painted with this stuff but quite a number of cars have been painted with this stuff using rollers, here’s an example done here in Aus:
http://forums.justcommodores.com.au/hol ... llers.html
this car looks really good so the Brightside Yacht paint was looking very promising. However, all the places that used to stock this stuff here in Aus do not have it anymore, I believe Interlux stopped exporting it to Aus. Damn, have to find something else again.

Then I came across this company: http://www.norglass.com.au/
An Australian company that makes paint for marine and other purposes, for aluminium surfaces they make a 2 pack epoxy primer and 2 pack polyurethane paint that you can spray, roll or brush on. Hmmm. Interesting.
I contacted the company explaining my intentions in an email, the president called me back shortly after. A very friendly and helpful person, he sounded quite excited about my project as well. He sent me tons of very useful information that week and outplayed the process of either rolling or spraying quite clearly. Obviously he also said you would get the best results getting a pro do a spray job but you can do a pretty good job with a roller yourself with a bit of practice.
It all looked and sounded very promising again.
Here’s a very useful document on what to do with aluminium: http://www.norglass.com.au/file_downloa ... m_Info.PDF

After doing all the research I decided to give the Norglass stuff a go, you can get it in small quantities (500ml) so I got some of the Norglass shipshape primer (white) and the Northane paint (opal white).
I am not going to use the Norglass metal etch cleaner though (which is a phosphoric acid like Alumiprep), I’m going with PreKote instead.
Other than that I’m following the company recommendations.
Time to perform some tests on some scrap aluminium (I have heaps of that :) ).
So far I have done 5-6 tests, getting better every time (the primer/paint has to cure for at least 24h between coats so a “test” takes a few days)

First few attempts were not looking good, here’s the main problem I was having:
The rollers recommended for this process are either mohair or microfiber. You can’t use the HD foam ones as the paint attacks the foam.
I used little 4” mohair ones, the most expensive ones I could find. Problem was they seemed to shed a lot of hairs in the paint surface.
After some head scratching and having a chat with the local paint store guy I learned these rollers have to be prepared before first use by putting some sticky tape around them and pulling it off, that will get rid of any loose hairs.
Then you soak them on the solvent for the paint and roll them out.
This solved that problem,
Now I’m not getting any of the hairs in the paint surface anymore but in some spots I’m still getting some orange peel effect, you can it clearly in the picture below:

I have not worked out yet why some spots get like this and other spots are better but this is where I’m at with it so far. It is getting better with every attempt.

In any case, I have become confident enough in this product/process combination that I went ahead and ordered 4L of the primer and 4L of the paint. I’m pretty sure I’ll work out the details now.
The only thing I have changed is the colour, the Opal white I had in my sample turned out way creamier than on the colour chart so I’m going with plain white instead, I will also have some red/grey lines to paint but that’s something to think about later on.

I’ll keep posting my progress in this thread as I go.

Glad to hear it is working out for you. I rolled my paint job as well and am really pleased with the results. Depending on how much effort you want to put into it, you can get a mirror finish buy cutting down the paint to remove any orange peel, rough areas or dust / bugs. I wet sanded with 1000, 1500, & 2000 and was able to get an excellent finish...bottom line is, you can even make the less than perfect areas look great with a little elbow grease.

Great to hear there are more :-)
Question, what do you do with the hinges on the flaps/ailerons. A brush perhaps?

I have a mix of paint & polish, so many of my hinges are unpainted; however, the ones I did paint, I just rolled. Of course I masked the area I didn't want painted. There may be some hinge paint that chips off, but I've seen that on sprayed 2 part paint jobs as well.

I only used a sponge brush in un-rollable areas like Naca Inlets or around the aileron counterweight.

One other thing to note....I put my paint on with 3 fairly thin coats (it's a very light paint job), but what that means in that using abrasive around the rivet heads can wear through the paint. I just live with it, but it's something to keep in mind.

Great info, thanks Frank.

Michael,
Any estimate on how much weight the paint job will add? If convenient, you might want to get a good weight for the plane before you start, then use the same equipment to weigh the bird afterward. Everyone is going to ask you about this anyway . . .

Good luck with the project. I've seen Dale's airplane in person, and it looks good.

My plane is still in my garage disassembled and this is how it will get painted so it will be hard to measure a total weight difference. I will try to weigh individual parts (flaps, ailerons, tail) before and after to get an idea how much paint surface adds up to how much weight.

Using the calculations in the documentation provided, I will need about 2L for one coat of primer and about 4L for 2 coats of paint.
Ideally you'd put 2 coats of primer on aluminium but given this is an airplane I might try to get away with one because of the weight concern. I'll perform a few more tests before making a decision on this.

I rolled the painted swoops on the bottoms of my wings and sprayed the upper surface and leading edges along with parts of the fuselage and cowling with a HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) spray gun. I had previously painted a hydroplane with a roller and used linear polyurethane marine paint call BriteSide. I decided to use Briteside on my Sonex as well.

The linear polyurethane diluted 10 percent with the Briteside specified reducer and sprayed with the HVLP gun turned out much better than the rolled surfaces. After polishing, the sprayed surfaces maintain a deeper shine in my case.

For those of you who do not know about HVLP spray guns, they work much better for amateur painters. There is almost no overspray and much less mess than a traditional spray gun. You do not need all the fancy exhaust fans and accessories or a spray booth. You can put some sheets of polyethelene over stuff in your garage that you dont want to get any residue on and spray away. Very little overspray. However, you will need a good respirator as the fumes are toxic when sprayed. With the Briteside the smell is not nearly as strong as traditional automotive or aircraft paints.

Bottom line is check out HVLP spray painting as an easy alternative to traditional spray painting in addition to rolling your paint.

Thanks,

Jake

If you are anywhere near Kansas, Sherwin Williams runs a two day paint school for their line of aviation paint. I know a number of RV guys that have gone to the class and they were able to not only get all the basics in a classroom enviroment but also spend a good amount of time in a paint booth using either the company supplied gun or their gun to practice applying the material with a pro watching over their shoulder. The cost is around $300 for the class.

https://www.swaerospace.com/about-us/tr ... etail.html

Keith
#554

Hello to all. Thank you for bringing this subject up. Has anyone tried rolling/brushing/spraying aluminum with outdoor latex paint? There are some internet discussions about using latex on fabric but very little about painting aircraft aluminum. I have experimented with adding lots of retarder to latex and find that it levels off nicely if you can slow the drying time with retarder and cooler ambient temp. The biggest problem thus far is that latex seems to stick too well and may be very difficult to remove, if ever required.

Has anyone tried it?

Gunther