Yeti_in_a_sportman
Filing Flight Plan
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Yeti_in_a_sportman
Evening all, I am looking for a recommendation around Dallas TX to get my 2+2 painted. Any help would be appreciated. 
Looking for a paint shop recommendation around Dallas TX
- Thread starter Yeti_in_a_sportman
- Start date
unsafervguy
En-Route
glo aircraft painting, but be prepared i hear grady's back log is long.
Why are paint jobs expensive? What’s to do?
- remove all the control surfaces
- cover all of the windows and other orifices that you don’t want stripper to penetrate
- remove wing lace or rubber trim anywhere in the airplane
- strip the airplane completely - no errors, no stripper in the wrong place to cause corrosion, no fried windows or ruined antennas, no destroyed gaskets. Remember most strippers used are Uber toxic, and the environmentally friendly ones are usually slow
- after rinsing the airplane completely, clean all the surfaces and remove all window and opening tape. Be ready to complain a lot after all the cuts many people get removing aluminum tape
- perform aluminum conversion / acid etching based on what aircraft church you believe in. Some use DA scotch brite pads, some don’t. yMMV.
- if you are of the school of chromating or alodining, this is where you do it
- some people perform any dent repair prior to this step, some perform it at this step.
- by now, any and all repairable corrosion should have been identified, sanded or treated. Make sure you breathe in those fumes, buzz a few rivets off, and burn through the Alclad along the way
- don’t forget to completely clean the landing gear including landing gear wells if applicable
- mask the airplane completely to ready it for spraying
- depending on the church you worship at, you paint, primer or seal the airplane at this point. If additional sanding is required, you sand it. Chromated airplanes resist corrosion hmm hmm hmm- - Otherwise, it’s time to move on to base coat paint
- after base coat, you mask all of the artwork onto the plane, N numbers and other work as well, and paint each of the subsequent colors
- unmask the airplane
- balance and reinstall control surfaces
- reapply new screws and hardware as well as trim and rubber
- did you paint the inside of the cowl? Some do some don’t…
So….
….i encourage anyone to try painting their own airplane at least once. Airplane paint can be messy, tedious and slow. Try paying someone minimum wage to spray methylene chloride and see how long they last. Try spraying aviation paint that’s isocyanate based like Imron which lasts 10!years without a respirator and see how long you last…
It’s much easier making money pinning avionics and charging 50-100 percent of the cost of hardware as most shops do. Once you’ve completed every step of painting your own airplane, you understand why some shops make you take out a home equity line to paint one.
. You can always get a DA out, sand your whole airplane, get some mops out and use some awl grip to make yourself happy - but you won’t be happy in the end
I’d say we are one of the most reasonable shops in the country given the work required. We aren’t in Texas tho
- remove all the control surfaces
- cover all of the windows and other orifices that you don’t want stripper to penetrate
- remove wing lace or rubber trim anywhere in the airplane
- strip the airplane completely - no errors, no stripper in the wrong place to cause corrosion, no fried windows or ruined antennas, no destroyed gaskets. Remember most strippers used are Uber toxic, and the environmentally friendly ones are usually slow
- after rinsing the airplane completely, clean all the surfaces and remove all window and opening tape. Be ready to complain a lot after all the cuts many people get removing aluminum tape
- perform aluminum conversion / acid etching based on what aircraft church you believe in. Some use DA scotch brite pads, some don’t. yMMV.
- if you are of the school of chromating or alodining, this is where you do it
- some people perform any dent repair prior to this step, some perform it at this step.
- by now, any and all repairable corrosion should have been identified, sanded or treated. Make sure you breathe in those fumes, buzz a few rivets off, and burn through the Alclad along the way
- don’t forget to completely clean the landing gear including landing gear wells if applicable
- mask the airplane completely to ready it for spraying
- depending on the church you worship at, you paint, primer or seal the airplane at this point. If additional sanding is required, you sand it. Chromated airplanes resist corrosion hmm hmm hmm- - Otherwise, it’s time to move on to base coat paint
- after base coat, you mask all of the artwork onto the plane, N numbers and other work as well, and paint each of the subsequent colors
- unmask the airplane
- balance and reinstall control surfaces
- reapply new screws and hardware as well as trim and rubber
- did you paint the inside of the cowl? Some do some don’t…
So….
….i encourage anyone to try painting their own airplane at least once. Airplane paint can be messy, tedious and slow. Try paying someone minimum wage to spray methylene chloride and see how long they last. Try spraying aviation paint that’s isocyanate based like Imron which lasts 10!years without a respirator and see how long you last…
It’s much easier making money pinning avionics and charging 50-100 percent of the cost of hardware as most shops do. Once you’ve completed every step of painting your own airplane, you understand why some shops make you take out a home equity line to paint one.
. You can always get a DA out, sand your whole airplane, get some mops out and use some awl grip to make yourself happy - but you won’t be happy in the end I’d say we are one of the most reasonable shops in the country given the work required. We aren’t in Texas tho
