[Phil Waterman]

With virtually all the parts now bolted back in place the finial coat of paint starts to go on. Well almost.
Hi All

With virtually all the parts now bolted back in place the final coat of paint starts to go on, well almost. In an homage to Gary Baths question about painting and the responses http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...light=painting what was to have been the top coat didn't go one as planned. So much for painting technique from memory as to and when all else fails go back and read the manual.

Paint came out uneven with a lot of bits of paint drying before they hit the body. HUP looks a little like a zebra in with gloss and flat pattern.

Got out the Dupont painting shop manual matched up the pictures of the paint flaws and looked at the possible causes. The list of problems:

Paint to thick/runs- correct viscosity to proper 18-20 sec cup test
Wrong air pressure/poor paint spray pattern - increase pressure to the suggested 50-65 psi (syphon type gun)
Speckles and narrow gun patter - Dirty gun (yup this is the real killer) disassembled the gun soaked the whole thing in cleaner and clean each part of the paint path with soft brushes until all the old paint was gone. The gun worked fine for painting individual parts with just running some paint thinner through it after each use but for the overall painting it just didn't want to work right.

Practiced with some old paint (not the Dupont Centari specially mixed to match original HUP color). Painted some practice panels and Jerry Cans and the paint went on like a charm. Tomorrow I'll lightly wet sand the HUP to clean up the imperfections and see if I can lay down a smooth flat top coat.

July 2012


Dec 2010