Getting the sonex painted

[kmacht]

I have posted a number of questions regarding paint over the past few months here and over on the yahoo group. I finally took the plunge and am having my plane professionally painted. I thought I would start a thread here to sort of track the progress as it goes and to help others with some price estimates if they are trying to decide which way to go.

The first part was the hardest. Trying to decide if I should paint it myself. After scratch building I was really leaning hard towards trying to learn how to paint as well. It almost felt like cheating by sending it off to someone for paint. I spent a few months reseraching paint types, spray guns, airline setups / dryers / filters, primers, home made paint booths, etc. My biggest problem was timing. I am shooting to make Crossville next year and maybe even Oshkosh so that meant the plane has to be painted over this coming winter. Trying to heat a homemade paint booth in Connecticut during the winter with a non-combustible heat source gets very tricky especially when you have to have siginificant ammount of air blowing in and out of the booth to keep the paint fog down and visibility when painting up. I came up with a solution but I was going to be about $1800 into it just in the heating and painting setup before I even bought any paint. My wife helped me come to the realiziation that the outside paint job is usually the first thing that someone notices on a plane and that after 9 years of work I shouldn't skimp there and risk having something come out less than perfect. The decision was made and I started shopping for a painter. (continued)

[kmacht]

So I started looking around to see who I could get to do the work. The first guy I came across was a friend of a friend. The problem was that he only wanted to shoot single stage paints and wasn't very interested in doing much more than a single color job. He was cheap though at about $1500. I then started looking at places that specialized in aircraft. I found one place up in vermont and sent a few photoshop sketches of the designs I was considering and got estimates back in the $8000 to $10,000 range. That was way outside of what I was willing to spend since I only have about 13k into the plane before paint. I then started checking out some recomended bodyshops. A number of them were interested but weren't willing to drive to my house to look at the project and give me an estimate. They wanted me to bring the plane to them. Not wanting to cart the plane and wings all around the state on a trailer just to get quotes I decided that wasn't going to work. I did find one guy that was willing to come out and look at the plane but when we started talking about prep work he mentioned wanting to take 120 grit sandpaper to the plane to prep it for paint. He didn't seem to understand when I told him that the skins were only .025 thick and that sanding it with that rough of a grit would probably make the plane nothing but a pile of scrap. I decided I needed someone more detail oriented and decided that maybe I could find someone that does custom paint work for hotrods and classic cars would be better. I ended up stumbling across a craigslist ad one day for a guy that does just that. I gave him a call and found out that he lives less than 10 minutes from my house. It got even better when he came over and I found out that he is also a pilot, a&P, and flies powered parachutes for fun. I looked at some of his previous work and also asked around about him and got nothing but good positive reviews. (continued)

[kmacht]

I finalized my paint design and we struck a deal. I ended up coming up with a 4 color paint scheme where the top of the fuselage and the leading eges are a metallic blue, the bottom of the fusealage and wings are white, there are some red and black accent stripes, the n-number is painted on the side of the fusealage, and the tail a checkerboard pattern. I will see if I can get some pictures posted up tonight.

I had always thought that adding things like stripes and painted numbers was going to get wicked expensive but after talking with the painter the only additional cost is a few hours of masking so it only added a little bit to the total cost. The biggest cost addition was the checkered tail as it required it to be masked and painted a number of times. The deal that we settled on was that I was going to pay him for labor and that I would supply the paint and materials. The labor agreement worked out to be $1000 for the wings and $1500 for the fusealage / wheel pants / cowl / etc. I figured with the hours he was going to have in prep work, masking, and painting that $2500 wasn't unreasonable.

For paint and materials he supplied me with a list of what he needed and hooked me up with a paint supplier that is up by where I work. The paint we went with is a ppg basecoat / clearcoat system. I ended up buying 1 gallon of white, 1 gallon of metallic blue, 1 gallon of epoxy primer, 1 quart of red, 1 quart of black, 2 gallons of clear, a number of gallons of reducer, activator, and hardner, 2 gallons of solvent cleaner, a gallon of prekote surface prep, 9 rolls of 3m tape in various sizes, and a few rolls of masking paper. All told the total came to just a little over $1700 in materials. So the total cost of the paint job is going to be right around $4300. If you decide to paint I would suggest looking carefully at colors and getting some costs before deciding on what you want. The quart of red I chose was almost as much as the gallon of white.

I dropped the wings off the other night at his house and he is supposed to get back to me in about 2 weeks once the white is applied so we can finalize the exact size and location of the red and black stripes. The estimate is about a month to do the wings and probably 6 weeks to do the fusealage. I still have a number of things to finish up on the fusealage before it is ready for paint so I'm in no rush. I will post pictures and updates of the paint job as it progresses here. If anyone has any questions on paint let me know. The only thing I probably wont' be able to answer is weight. I do not have a pre-paint weight for the plane.

Keith
#554

[Mike53]

As a retired painter from Ford's I can assure you you made the right decision .I trained many new painters over the years and the learning curve can be steep for some.
Base coat clear coat is different from the old enamel paints in that the base coat is fairly easy to apply but the clear coat is where the problems begin.Not enough and you have a dull finish .To much and you have sags or popping.When applying the clear coat you have to maintain a wet edge till you run out of real estate so your movements have to be planned out well. Two toning helps by splitting the plane up into manageable sections.It will be money well spent :D
Cheers,
Mike

[rizzz]

I’m now leaning towards the roller option that Dale explained in detail here:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=445&p=3246&hilit=roller#p3246

[fastj22]

As a retired painter from Ford's I can assure you you made the right decision .I trained many new painters over the years and the learning curve can be steep for some.
Base coat clear coat is different from the old enamel paints in that the base coat is fairly easy to apply but the clear coat is where the problems begin.Not enough and you have a dull finish .To much and you have sags or popping.When applying the clear coat you have to maintain a wet edge till you run out of real estate so your movements have to be planned out well. Two toning helps by splitting the plane up into manageable sections.It will be money well spent :D
Cheers,
Mike

Boy you got that right. Basecoat is easy. But laying down an orange peel free clear coat is beyond my skill set.
I'm still wet sanding and polishing. On a car its not too big a deal, but with all those raised rivets, its a pain in the butt.

[Mike53]

As a retired painter from Ford's I can assure you you made the right decision .I trained many new painters over the years and the learning curve can be steep for some.
Base coat clear coat is different from the old enamel paints in that the base coat is fairly easy to apply but the clear coat is where the problems begin.Not enough and you have a dull finish .To much and you have sags or popping.When applying the clear coat you have to maintain a wet edge till you run out of real estate so your movements have to be planned out well. Two toning helps by splitting the plane up into manageable sections.It will be money well spent :D
Cheers,
Mike

Boy you got that right. Basecoat is easy. But laying down an orange peel free clear coat is beyond my skill set.
I'm still wet sanding and polishing. On a car its not too big a deal, but with all those raised rivets, its a pain in the butt.

Here is a little trick to shorten your work.Get yourself some razor blades and round the corners.Glide the edge along the surface with a forward tilt(the sharp edge is trailing the top edge)Apply a smooth and even pressure and you will remove clearcoat without much effort and at a very rapid rate.All your looking for is removing the heads of the orange peel so don't get to aggressive or you will remove the base coat as well.Start lightly and you will quickly get the feel for how much pressure to apply .It's easy to see when you have removed the orange peel.Also much easier to work into the rivet heads.If done right all you need do after is a quick wet sand and then a polish wheel with a good quality paste and presto :o you will have the shinny surface your after.
Mike.

[fastj22]

Here is a little trick to shorten your work.Get yourself some razor blades and round the corners.Glide the edge along the surface with a forward tilt(the sharp edge is trailing the top edge)Apply a smooth and even pressure and you will remove clearcoat without much effort and at a very rapid rate.All your looking for is removing the heads of the orange peel so don't get to aggressive or you will remove the base coat as well.Start lightly and you will quickly get the feel for how much pressure to apply .It's easy to see when you have removed the orange peel.Also much easier to work into the rivet heads.If done right all you need do after is a quick wet sand and then a polish wheel with a good quality paste and presto :o you will have the shinny surface your after.
Mike.

So you drag the sharp edge like you are sharpening it? Does this work on fully cured clear coat?

[Mike53]

It matters not the age of the finish as a matter of fact the harder it is the better.At Fords the cars were baked after painting so once they cooled they could be worked on right away if there was a sag.That is the beauty of clear coat.Sags can be razored off and polished .Dirt can be sanded with 600 grit and then polished .Scratches(as long as they were within the clear coat) could be sanded out and again polished.
As I mentioned already ,start lightly till you get a feel for it.I would say the tilt of the razor blade would be about 30 degrees but you will find it easy to determine what's best.

[fastj22]

It matters not the age of the finish as a matter of fact the harder it is the better.At Fords the cars were baked after painting so once they cooled they could be worked on right away if there was a sag.That is the beauty of clear coat.Sags can be razored off and polished .Dirt can be sanded with 600 grit and then polished .Scratches(as long as they were within the clear coat) could be sanded out and again polished.
As I mentioned already ,start lightly till you get a feel for it.I would say the tilt of the razor blade would be about 30 degrees but you will find it easy to determine what's best.

Just to be clear, you are scraping, not cutting with the razor?