Touch Up Paint

[RLCarter]

6 hours ago, Davidv said:

Someone around here (Airparts in FXE) recommended going to a marine paint place to have that done.  They don’t have aviation paint but heavy duty marine grade which others have used in the past for touch up and I suppose would work?

Automotive paint is easier to find, almost all body shops of any size can mix paint, along with autoparts stores

[philiplane]

On 8/4/2019 at 8:35 AM, Davidv said:

Someone around here (Airparts in FXE) recommended going to a marine paint place to have that done.  They don’t have aviation paint but heavy duty marine grade which others have used in the past for touch up and I suppose would work?

Marine supply stores usually carry Awlgrip, which is a high end urethane paint used on planes and boats. 

[Davidv]

Quick update to this, on a recommendation of a paint shop (and others here) I went to Finishmasters and had them match the color.  The store down here also carries Axalta AF-400 which is a very common aviation grade paint (not cheap unfortunately).  I need to mix it with an activator that paint shop was kind enough to provide free of charge since Finishmasters only sells it in gallons for $325. I’m going to get a small sprayer and hopefully paint the leading edge soon.

[philiplane]

If you can't carry the new paint to the edge of a panel so as to avoid a paint line: To blend the new paint to the old, you wet sand about 6 inches past the repair area with 1500 grit. Spray the paint on the repair area to build the color, then bring a thin coat into the blend area. After the new paint has cured, you wet sand the blended area with 600, 800, 1200, then 1500. Then buff the area and you will not be able to detect where the old paint and new paint meet. 

[RLCarter]

9 hours ago, philiplane said:

If you can't carry the new paint to the edge of a panel so as to avoid a paint line: To blend the new paint to the old, you wet sand about 6 inches past the repair area with 1500 grit. Spray the paint on the repair area to build the color, then bring a thin coat into the blend area. After the new paint has cured, you wet sand the blended area with 600, 800, 1200, then 1500. Then buff the area and you will not be able to detect where the old paint and new paint meet. 

I'll also add when taping off the area for paint, if your not able to go to the edge of a panel to roll the edge of the tape up so it doesn't cause a hard line. Multiple light coats is better than a heavy coat, the last coat can be reduced (thinned) to help burn into the existing paint, and all coats get lighter towards the edges if your feathering it into the old paint

[Yetti]

And if you get a heavy finger, you can always break out the sandpaper.    I am amazed at how thin the Mooney factory was able to get the coat of paint and how durable it has been.

[bill98]

On 8/2/2019 at 7:12 PM, Yetti said:

Well it was memorable, because I know what you are talking about.

Ah, my fathers color - Baby Shit Yellow! Baby Shit Green being his second favorite color 

[jetdriven]

Mustard yellow.  It’s coming back. 

[RobertGary1]

I buy rattle cans from Aircraft Spruce.

-Robert 

[Seymour]

20 minutes ago, jetdriven said:

Mustard yellow.  It’s coming back.

I'm having the baby-poo stripes stripped off and repainting with some shade of blue.   (I refuse to be a slave to fashion.)

[RobertGary1]

A friend of mine just repainted his entire wing with rattle cans. If you google around you see a lot of car guys doing this as well.

 

-Robert

[Hank]

3 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Mustard yellow.  It’s coming back. 

       Sorry, but I'm fresh out of family-friendly adjectives to describe this . . . . . . 

But back in the day, my dad had a truck painted in company colors, "affectionately" described as Mustard & Custard. It wasn't attractive even then . . . . .

Edited August 8, 2019 by Hank

[RLCarter]

3 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

A friend of mine just repainted his entire wing with rattle cans. If you google around you see a lot of car guys doing this as well.

 

-Robert

There was a guy in high school that rattle canned his VW, problem was he ran out of paint and used a brush to drag the paint as needed, it was a 50/50 paint job, 50ft away and 50mph it wasn't too bad

[jetdriven]

If your gonna spray, a cheap ass harbor freight spray gun and a 50$ air compressor off Craigslist, along with some Nason 50$ a qt 2k Urethane paint can look pretty good. 

[RLCarter]

These Harbor Freight guns don't spray too bad, and go on sale all the time for $9.99, hardly worth cleaning

 

[Davidv]

9 hours ago, jetdriven said:

If your gonna spray, a cheap ass harbor freight spray gun and a 50$ air compressor off Craigslist, along with some Nason 50$ a qt 2k Urethane paint can look pretty good. 

Thanks, that’s the plan, just need to find a gun or airbrush with small nozzle since the areas I’m doing are very small...

[jetdriven]

Sharpe Finex is a great gun, Ive painted a car with it, and several airplane parts. Put primer on my 201 wings with it as well.

[hypertech]

Its tough to tell from the lighting in the photo and our planes are a few years apart, but my dark blue is Columbia Blue Metallic.  Maybe worth a look to see if that one matches.

[FastTex]

While I was cleaning my M20F belly I saw fuel stain and paint ruined by very old fuel leaks. What's the best way to make it decently clean? I have a few spray cans of the polyurethane paint used for the top cabin. Do I need to clean and/or primer? I was thinking just to cover the under wing in parts and spray paint it but I want to make sure it is threated properly.

Thanks!

[EricJ]

On 8/8/2019 at 9:12 PM, RLCarter said:

These Harbor Freight guns don't spray too bad, and go on sale all the time for $9.99, hardly worth cleaning

 

These days many paint shops will color-match (e.g., to an inspection panel) and load a spray bomb (aka rattle can) with the paint for you.    This makes the small touch-ups much easier with no other equipment necessary.

 

[Seth]

I'm following this thread.  Very fascinating.  I'm not the best artist but I can mechanically make things work.  I'll practice on some scrap prior to touching up the airplane, but this could be a great way for me to touch up my leading edge and other small areas.

I do have the paint codes for my airplane.

And if I mess it up, I can always go to a real paint shop and have them remove my bad work and respray the leading edge and other areas.

The problem is my hangar does not have high walls and there's a lot of dust/particulate in there.  I wonder how this will harm the finish of my paint job/touch up

-Seth

Edited October 15, 2019 by Seth

[toto]

26 minutes ago, Seth said:

IAnd if I mess it up, I can always go to a real paint shop and have them remove my bad work and respray the leading edge and other areas.

Out of curiosity, any idea what a paint shop would charge for a laundry list of very small touch-up items?

If it was less than an AMU, I might be tempted to go that route, since I'd be likely to end up needing professional help after trying to touch up my plane with a brush anyway 

[elimansour]

My leading edges and horizontal stabilizer have lots of chips and I asked around for recommendations.  I found a really good painter and was quoted almost 3 AMU for repainting/ blending of wing leading edges and horizontal stabilizer.  The painter usually touches up big jets and I have seen his work and it is flawless. 

[toto]

19 minutes ago, elimansour said:

My leading edges and horizontal stabilizer have lots of chips and I asked around for recommendations.  I found a really good painter and was quoted almost 3 AMU for repainting/ blending of wing leading edges and horizontal stabilizer.  The painter usually touches up big jets and I have seen his work and it is flawless. 

That sounds about what I would expect.  My plane looks perfect from about 10 feet, but there are little tiny things like scratches near the cowl fasteners that irritate me.  The only paint chips I have are on rivet heads, and from another thread I had an interesting recommendation to use an eyedropper with touch-up paint for those.  That's probably the limit of my painting ability.

[Seth]

Around 3k was my quoted price for leading edge and other touch up areas.  But those quotes are old now and I’d need new quotes.

-Seth