Originally Posted by
smchale
Great info Jeremy! I know Rav didn't ask, but what sort of equipment (gun) do you spray with? Something like a Sata mini jet 4? If so, do you use a different tip for color vs clear? I've been using a fairly inexpensive hvlp gravity gun for PPG base coat and clear but it has a 1.4 tip and was wondering if I should use something smaller? Also, thinking I should upgrade the gun. I don't use it a lot, maybe two paint jobs a year, but it would be nice to get a better result out of the gun and reduce (even just a little) the sanding effort etc afterwards. Hope this isn't taking the thread off track Rav.
Sean,
I have recommended the Sata Minijet for a long time. If you can only afford one gun for model painting, it would be the one I would recommend. It makes it tougher for overall base coats and clears, but it's a brilliant gun. If you can afford it, get a Minijet for your trim colors, and a Sata RP for overall coverage and clear. I use a 0.8 tip in my minijet and a 1.3 in my RP's for base and clear. If I have a very fine metallic I switch to a 1.2 tip in the RP.
I recently repainted my old CAI Raptor, I used Sata RP3000 for the white basecoat, and the clear and a Minijet for the red, yellow and black. Once the jet was prepped, this entire paintjob from Spraying the white, taping, painting the red white and black, adding a pearl clear, and a final clear coat was 6 hours. Most of the time spent is waiting for the paint to flash so you can mask it, and then the masking. The actual time spent painting was only about 1.5 hours total. The hot section was done the next day using the minijet and an Iwata HP-C airbrush, then cleared with the minijet using a flat clear.
All the paint is Matrix automotive paints, I've switched from PPG just a little over a year ago now. Clear was Matrix MSV-23 which is a fairly inexpensive clear. Their AG40LV is the nicest clear I have ever sprayed, but it is a high solids clear and it is very high solids so I didn't want to use it on an airplane.
