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Painting fuselage tubing

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Posted

Hi all, I've been finishing the sandblasting on a Avid fuselage and this evening I shot on a coat of acid etching primer. I was using a small touch up gun, it's small and holds maybe 1/2 cup in the pot. It sure is a pain in the rear shooting all those little tubes. Seemed impossible not to get runs in the paint. Good thing most of it will end up covered and not be seen. My main concern is rustproofing, and looks come in second to that. I think I will have the rustproofing taken care of, I'm putting an epoxy over this primer tomorrow. Any body got any tips on painting a fuselage that works for them? I think it would be great to have an electrostatic gun for this stuff, but I might blow the garage up with what I was using. Any ideas?? Jim Chuk

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Posted

Call Larrys powdercoating guy!

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Posted

I would have been tempted to take it to him, It's probably about 250 miles from me. I had the paint already, and the sandblasting was almost done a year ago, and I just had to get to the last of it. Actually, I had found a rusted tube in the tail, and had to replace that, and the project ended up on the back burner. As long as I had to replace tubing, I ended up widening the fuselage at the doors 1 1/2" on each side. Added 7' of 1/2" tubing on each side. Basically it follows the door frame, and is standard width at front of door, and at the top back of door. Angles out 1 1/2" from front of door to back bottom of door, parallels the door frame up to the next tubing joint, and then angles back to the original top of the door frame. I'll have to post some pics once it's painted. As far as powercoating goes, I've heard of rust getting under it and progressing further from it's starting point till one might have a big area of rust, and not even know it. I guess it's very important that it doesn't have any cracks in the finish where the rust could start. Any body have any thoughts on that?? Or the original question for that matter? Jim Chuk

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Posted

If it was sand blasted, you didn't need to use an etching primer before the epoxy primer. I generally sand blast then go straight to epoxy primer. Almost all direct to metal epoxy primers have an etching acid built into the hardener. Infact some epoxy primers will not adhere to a wash type primer.

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Posted

Well it's too late now! LOL  :-) Got the epoxy topcoat applied today.  Here are a couple of pics.  If you spot some bare areas it's because I ran short of paint, and had to mix just a bit more.  The epoxy has to set for a half hour before you can use it, so that's when I took these pictures.  First pic is the whole fuselage, the rest show how I widened the fuselage at the doors.  7' of 1/2" tubing used on each side.  Fuselage is now about 3 1/2" wider that standard MK IV.  Jim Chuk

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Posted (edited)

That's what I did to widen my cabin 3" on each side - it works. Still have to bend one door frame to match new width.

The outfit that blasted mine put 2 coats of epoxy on it the same day - telling me it didn't need a primer. They paint a lot for the Coast Guard, so have to believe they know what they are saying for my $1000!

EDMO

Edited by Ed In Missouri

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Posted

looks great Jim

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Posted

Epoxy is a primer.

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Posted

Well I've been out looking again at the fuselage, and am surprised by how many spots got lightly covered on the side of tubes. Fortunatly, I had put the last of the epoxy in a can on the floor right next to the garage door where it's pretty cold. That kept the paint from hardening up. Got a 1/2" wide brush and hopefully got all the missed spots. I also ran across the paperwork that came with the epoxy paint. It showed that I paid $75 for that paint. I'm sure the primer was about $50. So at that rate, I have $125 for paint, not sure how much for the sandblasting grit, I bought way to much, and probably will have enough for life if it doesn't get wet and clump togeather, and I don't want to think about how many hours I put in sandblasting and prepping for and painting the fuselage. I'm definatly going to rethink the powercoat option on the next one. $260 is dirt cheap. Any one have any thoughts about the worry of rust getting under the powercoating and causing problems?? Jim Chuk

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Posted

I could have powder coated mine a couple of times already ha, I bought some black epoxy primer from a company called Eastwood, don't ever need to do that again, I did some testing with it, let it dry at 60 to 70 degrees for 1 week, then took a rag soaked with acetone and wiped the primer, wouldn't you know it, it wipes right off, there goes $80 bucks, I used acetone and Mek with the same results, afraid if I was to use it, it would all soften up when I hit it with poly-tac. So I went to the auto parts store and got some good stuff made by PPG it was DP90LV it was there epoxy primer, Now that's good stuff. but I had to give $187dollars for 1 quart with hardener, If I had to do it again I would just have her powder coated, since the local powder coating is only 20 minutes from me. One of these days I will get it done and ready for paint.

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Posted

I used two quarts for the acid etching primer, and also 2 quarts for the epoxy paint. Each comes as a two part mix, with one quart of each part.. No doubt, most of the paint is now stuck to my garage floor, as a lot of it misses the tubes. Anyway, that's how much I used with basically one coat of each type of paint. I did look around closer to home today for some one to give me a price on sandblasting and powercoating. Looks like Crystal finishing is 300 miles from me. That ends up being 1200 miles with hauling it down, then having to go back when it's done. I have a Kitfox 4 fuselage that will need blasting and new paint when I start to rebuild it. Plan is to finish the Avid first, then the Kitfox. Jim Chuk

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