I finally had some time back in the garage tonight after a few days away with the family, and waiting for some painting supplies to arrive. My dad helped me prime all the parts for the Vertical Stabilizer, which turned out to be a frustrating job. I’m using Stewart Systems EkoPoxy to prime, which seems like a great product. All of the frustration I ran into could be attributed to a lack of experience, since it was the first time I have used the products and equipment. The process involves three steps; cleaning, etching and then priming. Stewart offer three products to do this; EkoClean, EkoEtch and (in my case) EkoPoxy. EkoPoxy is a two part, non-toxic, water based, epoxy primer. The benefits are great adhesion, light weight, and easy clean-up. I used 100 grams of epoxy base, and just managed to cover the Vertical Stabilizer parts, including the inside of the skin. I was debating whether to paint the skin or not, and eventually decided I’d feel better knowing it was coated.
The cleaning process was easy, as was the etching. I used a maroon scotchbrite pad to manually and chemically etch the parts, then washed it off with warm water, then high pressure hose to blast off any remaining etch.
Then the priming began. We mixed up 100 grams of base (150 grams once hardener and water applied) paint and set up the spray gun. I’m using a 3M gun with 1.4mm nozzle. It took some time to set it up, first getting the right amount of pressure to the gun, then to adjust the fluid flow to get an even spay pattern. It was dark by the time I started painting, and found it hard to see how much paint was being applied due to the lighting situation in the garage. The white color was hard to see against the aluminum, and I ended up with an uneven first coat. A second coat improved matters, but then I found that the paint was sticking to the drop paper I was using. In a couple of spots I ended up with paper stuck to the part. Then to top it off I started to run out of paint before I could totally finish the second coat. I was intending to have a light coat, but I’m not sure if it’s too light. Will look at it again tomorrow in some better lighting, and figure out how to deal with the touching up where paper stuck to the paint.
