True (400) grit

So the decision has been made. Wet sand off all the crud with 400 grit, respray silver Aerothane over any I sanded off, then respray the wings. 

 

For those builders who are debating about painting, a couple more thoughts about my process (errors) to help with their decision.

To recap, the PolyFiber manual recommends Tone for fabric and Aerothane for metal, but also advises Aerothane can be used on fabric, as long as you wait 4 days for the Spray to outgas, since Aerothane is a non-porous coating, and PTone cannot easily be used on metal. Since I was under a time crunch with limited paint booth availability, I went with Aerothane instead of PolyTone, I thought I'd save time by spraying everything all at once. In retrospect, I was wrong, though others tried to warn me, sigh.... (On my next SeaRey...)

Lessons learned:
First, It didn't sink into my numbskull that I could have used PolyTone on the fabric immediately after spraying (instead of waiting 4 days for the PolySpray to outgas before applying the hard coated/non-porous Aerothane), if it had I would have used PolyTone on the fabric parts, and it actually would have saved time, since I could have eliminated waiting the 4 days of outgassing and sprayed color right away.

Second, if I have to repair a control surface (like if a float safety release breaks and it punches a hole in the bottom of the wing), I could just remove the PolyTone around the damaged area with some reducer, make the repair and respray/apply the PolyBrush/Spray/Tone immediately, and blend the repair into the surrounding PTone with some reducer. With Aerothane I'll have to sand it off down to the silver, reapply the silver, let it sit, then reapply the Aerothane. Plus, for long term you can rejuvenate (their words, not mine) PolyTone painted surfaces when the paint gets old (+15 years). Probably not a big factor on hangared airplanes, but...

Third, with PolyTone you don't have to use a full breathing kit, you can use the same rig as you do with PolyBrush/Spray. Speaking of which, a local gent is loaning me his booth for the wing respray, it does not have a personal air supply so I've ordered a Hobbyair unit. When I'm done respraying in a month or two I'll have it for sale, including the hood, if anyone is planning their painting and needs one.drop me a note if you're interested. I also have a couple extra gallons of PBrush and 65-75 reducer, but not sure if it would be worth selling since it's considered Hazmat for shipping.

Fourth, if I had gotten a run with PTone, I could have just wiped it off with reducer and resprayed shortly afterward, instead of waiting a week for Aerothane to dry, then sanding it off and reapplying. Same with all this FOD on the wing that I now have to sand off. I could have just gotten out a rag and wiped it all off.

Fifth, you have to wait a week for Aerothane to dry before masking for trim, Tone only 12 hours (overnight).

Sixth, PolyTone is about 1/3 the cost. (that really hurts)


If you REALLY must have an overall glossy finish, and have the time and money to do it right, go ahead and use Aerothane over the fabric, but keep in mind repairs are going to be a bit more difficult/involved. OTOH, if you don't care about semi-gloss fabric, want to save money, make repairs easier, and maybe are under a time crunch, go with the mixture of Tone and Aerothane.

The down side is that I would have had an airplane with semi-gloss fabric and glossy metal, but that would not bother me, and even PolyFiber mentions in the manuals that's more historically accurate since dope covered fabric is semi-gloss. If I ever (knock wood) break anything bad enough to need recovering I'll use PolyTone for the new surfaces.

On the way home after a long stretch of trips, have at least a week off now and with a bit of luck (and patience from an understanding wife) I plan to be at the hangar every day, may be able to get the sanding done this week.

Ah well, it's all good, and Thanks for listening, I hope it helps someone and is not the rambling of an old fart. She does look purty in her shiny paint, and the scheme we're kicking around (combination of vinyl and paint) should be easy to apply but striking.

 

Elbow grease on, grit off.  Elbow grease on, grit off.  Elbow grease on, grit off. 

 

Bits and pieces

With the big parts safely tucked away, it was time to paint the small pieces, and finish painting the control surfaces. The rudder had a sag in the paint, since there was going to be room I decided to spray one light coat after wet sanding out the sag. Maybe I'm anal, but I practiced on my test frames first.

 

7 out of 8. Somehow, on the first pass of the first piece of the day, I got 2 large runs on the aileron in the upper right of the pic. It will have to be redone.

 

When I did the fairings I laid them directly on the plastic dropcloths.

BIG mistake, I should have put them on a few pieces of scrap, and off the plastic. Luckily, I was able to carefully peel the paint snot off the pieces before it set up.

It was a busy month, but I'm happy. Still trying to figure out what to do about the wings, there's a nice spray of junk on them that's bugging me, but the paint booth is now tied up with revenue jobs. 

Something will turn up. I hope.

....

Oh Hull yes!

 One thing I've been dreading and was a huge long pole was painting the fin. The fin is built into the hull, then covered, so in order to paint the fin you have to move the whole bloody hull to the paint booth. 

 First thing was do sand all the metal parts with 400 grit to roughen them up for paint.

 

And I got to learn how to drive a forklift. 

I got one of my hangar neighbors after the move, he stopped by and said Hey, something's missing! I put on my meanest face, said Yeah, it happened last week while I was on a trip, there's only a few people who have the combination of the hangar, and I've got a pretty good idea about who has it. His face fell, and you could see the gears grinding about Who and How someone could/would steal an airplane. He finally said Paint shop? and I cracked.

The rudder is getting painted at the same time.

During this the smoke from the wildfires was choking us. I think the air in the paint shop was cleaner than it was outside.

I aloso took advantage of the extra room to put 2 more coats of paint on the stabs. Remember, the gun had a malfunction while I was painting, leaving the control surfaces with only 2 light coats of paint. Some amber Scothbrite roughened up the paint for adhesion of the new.

Damn... a small run. Oh well.

But overall, everything came out well.

Take your airplane for a walk day. It was to rainy to transport the hull back to the hangar, so Osp was temporarily moved downhill to free up the booth for the wings.

Empty nest.

A bit of smoothing between coats.

And a check to see how the coverage was.

Let it outgas for 4 days.

Drain holes made with a soldering iron.

Hey, it's good to be back home again....

OspRey marked her spot. Sorry, Dan.

Despite all my efforts, something happened while spraying the paint and the wings got FOD'ed. Damn!

 

I was either in the paint booth or on a trip in September. I only had the booth for one month. But I still had time to keep working on the wiring now and then.