Advice on painting

[Jakehmx06]

Hey ladies and gents new to the site and looking for anyone with advice or experience in painting. I own a 75 pa-28-140 and am preparing to paint it. We have it stripped and are ready to prep the aluminum. All the fiberglass has been removed and repaired my main question is to acid etch and Alodine or not? I've received mixed answers on this with some people saying just to clean with MEK. I'm also planning on shooting ppg single stage concept ureathane. Any advice or experience is greatly appreciated. Any ideas on quantity? 3 gallons?

 

[kmacht]

Look into Pre-Kote. Much easier than etch and alodine.

Keith

 

[Bill Watson]

Look into Pre-Kote. Much easier than etch and alodine.

Keith

Yes, Pre-Kote. It's the least toxic thing you have or will use in painting a plane. Easy too.

Pardon the unsolicited advice - this is stuff you may already be aware of or it may not apply....

I painted my RV10 - not a job I expected to do but very fulfilling. Hard to beat any of the polyurethanes for durability and looks. The toxicity of the stuff is VERY serious business. You MUST use a fresh air breathing system.

Part of my painting project involved spending a lot of time at a local paint distributor. Very helpful people but most of them had cognitive problems from polyurethane exposure. The manager admitted to his problems but they were obvious. I was constantly surprised at how many customers came in showing signs of problems. Talk about being scared safe!

Polyurethane coatings are fantastic! Dangerous as hell though.

 

[bluerooster]

Hey ladies and gents new to the site and looking for anyone with advice or experience in painting. I own a 75 pa-28-140 and am preparing to paint it. We have it stripped and are ready to prep the aluminum. All the fiberglass has been removed and repaired my main question is to acid etch and Alodine or not? I've received mixed answers on this with some people saying just to clean with MEK. I'm also planning on shooting ppg single stage concept ureathane. Any advice or experience is greatly appreciated. Any ideas on quantity? 3 gallons?

As to wheather or not to acid etch or not depends on how you stripped it. I don't really think it is needed, but you make the call. Main thing is to have it CLEAN and I mean free of any residual stripper, acid, alodine, etc, even out of the cracks. Lots of soap and water, along with a scotch brite pad will work wonders for that. I would then let it dry good and wash it down with wax and grease remover. Then you'll be ready for epoxy, I'd reccomend DP. Probably DP48 if you're going with a white, but any of the DP colors will do. Take it in sections, that airplane is about the same painted square footage as 3 Tahoes. (probably closer to 3 Suburbans)
I did this one with 1 gallon and 1 quart of white Concept, over DP40 epoxy. Painted the entire airplane white first, then added the blue and the stripe. The blue, being a pearl, I used 1 quart of DBC, and a quart of 2002 clear, only clear over the blue, and accent stripe.

 

[Henning]

At minimum give it a good wash and scrub with plenty of soap (I've always use Palmolive dish liquid) then a rinse using vinegar or glacial acetic scrubbing out all the cracks. The key is getting it clean, clean, clean and any little residue of stripper (alkaline) neutralized, and the vinegar or various etch washes do this as well as give a slight etch to the surface.