Johnny9390

My Feedback: (34)

If I wanted to paint this airplane pictured but only change certain parts of it and not paint the whole thing whats the best technique? For example on this airplane I wanted to change the purple only. DO I mask out everything NOT to be painted, wet sand the purple off? "do I have to sand all paint off"

Do I have to prime area again? and then paint?

Also if I wanted to get rid of the paint seams, best way is to wet sand the area (joining paint lines) lightly and then clear the whole airplane again? so clear the areas that already have clear and clear over that again?? Sorry never painted before and wanna give it a shot. Just not a fan of the purple.

TomCrump

It will be easiest to sand the entire air frame, and then repaint. the paint does not need to be entirely removed, just sanded smooth. I suggest that you use 320 grit.

Priming may not be necessary.

Before painting, do a compatibility test to insure that the underlying paint will not be effected by the new top coat.

Flypaper 2

If you're going to paint with a lighter colour, you'll need to prime with aluminum paint. Otherwise it will take many coats of lighter paint to cover over the dark.

kenh3497

I think it might be best to sand the entire airframe as Tom suggested. Trying to mask off certain colors IMO, will be an exercise in futility. You may find after you start sanding it might go well enough that you will remove most if not all the paint. Personally I would sand with wet or dry paper used wet. It will not clog as fast as dry paper.

If weight will be a concern I would certainly do my best to remove as much pant as possible. Post back with any questions and progress.

Ken

kenh3497

On technique not used much these dyas is scraping. You can remove a lot of material in a short time or/and you can be very precise with it. Anything with a sharp edge can be used. Easy is a single edge razor blade. Hold the blade so the top of the blade leads the cutting edge slightly, and use just enough pressure to scrape away the material you are scraping. Finish up with some fine sandpaper. One nice thing about scraping is the scraper never gets plugged with the material being scraped like sandpaper does.

Ken

jester_s1

On the question of eliminating the paint masking lines, you can spray your first color and then feather the edge before masking it for the second color. But you can't feather the line from the second color all the way without ruining the appearance. Putting dark colors over light colors helps as they cover better and so don't need to be as thick. If you want a perfectly smooth surface though, the only way to get it is to spray a lot of clear and then cut and buff. You'll pay a weight penalty for that show quality paintjob and you'll spend a lot of time on it. You can mitigate the weight gain by only making the seam lines thick and leaving the large color areas thinner, then doing only a light sanding on the thin parts before the final buff instead of a full cut.

Hydro Junkie

Depending on if the whole plane is FG or not, you might consider stripping it with a compatible stripper. I know there are strippers just for stripping FG as I have some I used to strip down a FG hulled scale hydroplane

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

That jet is a CARF Shockwave that is all composite and the paint is done in the mold. What he means by seams are the actual mold seams that are still visible. Just about any paint can be applied over the existing finish by simply scuffing the surface. The seams can be primed over and then painted. The seams is the only area that may require primer. The easiest way to go about this is to break the gloss on the whole surface of the airplane, mask everything off but the purple, spray an automotive base of white over the purple and then the desired color. Finish off with a coat of automotive urethane clear. Over the entire airplane. Easy. Here is a picture of the same jet with slightly different colors. Looks like a stock color pattern. Also my CARF Extra before and after painting.