Anyone paint a airplane?...if so what procedure and type of paint SS or BC/CC?

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ls60apache

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Hello everyone! never thought i would get asked to paint a small air plane.seems like it could be a headache lol .my old boss has done all the prep work of stripping to bare aluminum....how does aluminum need to be prepped for spi epoxy...alodine first? or straight to epoxy then color... or etch primer on aluminum then color? and hopefully to use a single stage in silver and a few blue stripes. also what would be a good recommendation for brand of SS for best durability?
 
You'll be re-sanding. Aluminum starts to oxidize almost immediately when bare, so it will be best to do sections until primed. I sand aluminum with 150, then waterborne wax & grease remover, then straight to unreduced epoxy primer. After that cures you can do any bodywork or blocking, just re-epoxy coat right away after that. If no smoothing needs to be done, then you can reduce the epoxy as a sealer and paint right over that. I have a few customers that have done their airplanes with very good results. Actually, one customer just used straight white epoxy and that was it, no other top coat paint.
 
RenewAP said:
You'll be re-sanding. Aluminum starts to oxidize almost immediately when bare, so it will be best to do sections until primed. I sand aluminum with 150, then waterborne wax & grease remover, then straight to unreduced epoxy primer. After that cures you can do any bodywork or blocking, just re-epoxy coat right away after that. If no smoothing needs to be done, then you can reduce the epoxy as a sealer and paint right over that. I have a few customers that have done their airplanes with very good results. Actually, one customer just used straight white epoxy and that was it, no other top coat paint.
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Uh oh...the owner has stripped this thing to bare shinny aluminum with some sort of citrus based stripper.... hopefully no body work needed and too many rivets to block....he wants to paint the bulk of it silver..and painting in sections sounds like a good plan. do you have a recommendation on a good single stage that can withstand the stresses of a plane..?.. So sand with 150,clean,spi epoxy and adhesion should be good within the 7 day window to apply color..I think some like to scotch Brite .also thank you again for your response and info !
 
In the 90s I worked for a small aircraft parts supplier.
They used Alodine to prepare for polyimide epoxy.
The prep seemed to be the key to the bond.
We had tooling shot with the same epoxy but they skipped the Alodine and the bond wasn’t even close to production parts.
Today’s epoxy may be vastly superior to what was used in a MIL-Spec shop in the last of the previous century.
This is just information, which may not be worth the time it took to read it.
 
If SPI had a SS Silver, I would go with that. Imron as far as I know is still the top choice for boats and airplanes. I'm sure there are some specialty industrial coatings that are even better but you may need to wait for other comments on this. Someone here will know the best way.
 
Once the aircraft aluminum skins are sanded they should be Alodined with 1201 or 1200 first to protect the alclad layer. They would get primed using PRC Desoto’s epoxy primer. Anything under antenna’s get Alodine 600 and no primer as they need to be conductive. When I worked for the General Aviation shops the most common SS was DuPont’s Imron. Working at the Corporate Aircraft service center the most common SS is Sherwin-Williams Jet Glo.
 
ls60apache said:
Uh oh...the owner has stripped this thing to bare shinny aluminum with some sort of citrus based stripper.... hopefully no body work needed and too many rivets to block....he wants to paint the bulk of it silver..and painting in sections sounds like a good plan. do you have a recommendation on a good single stage that can withstand the stresses of a plane..?.. So sand with 150,clean,spi epoxy and adhesion should be good within the 7 day window to apply color..I think some like to scotch Brite .also thank you again for your response and info !
Click to expand...
Have him use a product like Bonderite or Alodine then epoxy right away. Do a search here and ask Barry for specific advice on epoxying after using those products. Barry has helped several guys do their planes with SPI epoxy and a conversion coating.
 
oh yes on checking on FAA regs and so has owner...he been talking to his annual inspector on this project and it will be logged and inspected before it flys again..owner has done all disassembly and prep...and Chris i did a lil searching on here about this and saw a few threads where Barry mentions alodine works well with spi epoxy once neutralized... and dried and best epoxied with in 12 hours... 24 max. probably do sections at a time....most likely be using jet glo thanks Ericb.... and thank you all for the tips and warnings about FAA...may just adjust the paint gun and hand it to the owner.lol.
 
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