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Particulate under paint


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I've never had a plane repainted so, this is definitely a peanut gallery comment: If you are familiar with paint on restored cars you need to admit defeat NOW!  I've never seen ANY aircraft paint job come close to the quality of a good automobile refinish.  In all aspects, I'm afraid.  Your friend is going to need to lower his expectations, IMHO, if he is 'show car' picky.  At the price for a quality aircraft paint job you would expect better...but, they're all 10 footers:(

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Agree with MikeOH.

If your friend is not pleased, express the dissatisfaction with the painting facility.  Hopefully they will address in order to please him.

Again, it’s all relative to your friends acceptance.

To answer the question,  in my 3 Mooney aircraft painting experiences, yes there was some dust/particles embedded in the final process.  Minimal to my determination. Some were easily removed without altering the finish, and some were left so as not to damage the otherwise beautiful finish.   A judgment call.  

Uh, again it’s all relative, but mine were definitely not 10 footers :lol: based on the fact that I was in the shop during critical steps of the process.  I received a nickname from the facility !!:P

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9 minutes ago, MooneyMitch said:

Agree with MikeOH.

If your friend is not pleased, express the dissatisfaction with the painting facility.  Hopefully they will address in order to please him.

Again, it’s all relative to your friends acceptance.

To answer the question,  in my 3 Mooney aircraft painting experiences, yes there was some dust/particles embedded in the final process.  Minimal to my determination. Some were easily removed without altering the finish, and some were left so as not to damage the otherwise beautiful finish.   A judgment call.  

Uh, again it’s all relative, but mine were definitely not 10 footers :lol: based on the fact that I was in the shop during critical steps of the process.  I received a nickname from the facility !!:P

Do you mind me asking who painted your planes?

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My case...Way too much.  Had my plane painted about 8 years ago.  Shop offered a great price with warranty.  Depending on the surface, I had anywhere from minimal, to every 2 square inches on one elevator.  The worst were the bugs in the paint.  It’s not worth mentioning the shop, they went under a few weeks later...no more warranty, but here is what I learned.  Don’t pick a shop on the reputation of someone who is no longer active...in this case the father.  When you pick a shop, discuss facilities.  They had a hangar, but turns out the filters had not been changed in ages.  Best I can tell, due to lack of airflow, they would open doors and let bugs in.  There are sophisticated filtration systems, this was not one of them.  I’ve slowly removed the major offenders, but it’s been frustrating.  The overall quality was not bad...but the specs still”bug” me.  A good paint job may have some dust every few square feet, and they will usually get rid of those before pickup.  I got what I paid for, but less than promised.

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Keeping airborne particles at bay is a major paint challenge...

The car shops have specialized paint rooms where filtered air comes in from the top of the room, descends and gets removed at the bottom of the room...

There are pics around here of a recent Canadian O getting painted.... there is a lot of water on the floor.... possibly, a method of controlling dust... or just remnants of a lot of washing... 

If your paint shop is using hepa filters... expect a multi step air processor that starts with more corse filters in front them...

The good news... there is a follow up process called paint correction.... Somebody took some awesome video of their paint getting fixed up prior to them doing the most serious wax job ever...

If your friend doesn’t mind dropping 10amu notes to get to the next level share the the MS threads with Gtech products in it...

Find the GTech guy, he has got to be the most knowledgable paint surface guy... :)

PP thoughts only, I have never had a plane painted...

Best regards,

-a-

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The problem I see is the amount of surface area an aircraft has, the other problem is weight, show cars have multiple coats that get color sanded between with the last coat getting sanded then polished, with all the lap joints and rivets it would also be too labor intensive for a show quality paint job. It's a fine line keeping the surface wet enough so the paint will flow (lay flat) and not run or sag and it puts a lot of paint in the air which settles back on the surface (dust). Bugs will be attracted to the lighting which needs to good enough to not have shadowing, best thing there is leave them in the paint and sand them out when it's dry. The other thing to remember is a show car gets a skim coat of filler over the entire surface then block sanded to get it straight and smooth. One last thing lighter colors (white) hides flaws beter than darker colors (black)

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