Hi,
I have used solratex covering on my first Kit building (PT-40), I have painted the solartex with a latex paint. I have painted the whole plane with a base color. My question, can I Iron white Solratex Strips over the already painted base color? and will the Solartex strips stick over the painted latex paint?

my second option, is to paint white strips over the painted base color (Dark Olive green), would probably require a couple of coats of whites to cover the dark olive green.

What would you recommend me?

regards,</p>

It would look better and be more durable if you painted the white. If these are invasion stripes, they were pretty nasty in reality anyway. Like they painted them with a broom. These are generally seen modeled way too perfect.

Thank you very much for the reply.
and yes they are invasion strips ! I will try to paint the white over the base covering, thank you very much.

You can use the blue masking tape and paint the lines. You need to allow at least a week for each coat of paint to dry. If you get a good white, it will cover the darker color. Don't forget a clear coat when all the colors have been applied. Good Luck, Dave

Thanks Dave. I will post pictures when done

Be sure you fog on those first few coats, the paint will want to run under the tape through the fabric's weave. Take you time and it can come out nice, rush and it could be a mess

good luck

Hi!
Why did you paint the solartex covering with latex paint? Latex paint is heavy and cannot stand glow fuel.
I much better way is to use Oracover if you want trim colours.

To answer your original question: "no" you cannot iron over latex on any base. Except for the negative about using latex (it's all I use) the rest of the posts are right on.

To stop the bleeding under make your first coat after masking the surface the same color as your base. If it bleeds it won't show, and that will seal the tape lines. Then paint on your trim color and pull the tape after the paint isn't sticky anymore but before it fully cures.

good tip jester

Thank you very much everyone for all your inputs. The reason I chose Latex paint is due to the lack of color variety and the exact shades available in the spray on products (i.e. Rustoleum).
I followed the comments that you guys have suggested on the forum, and so far the results are amazing.

1- I used a good quality of masking tape
2- Before applying the invasion stripes colors over the latex paint, I sealed the edges of the masking tape with a Clear Coat of rustoleum paint (seems to be working great)
3- I painted the area that I wanted with the invasion stripe colors
4- So far it seems to be working fine, no bleeding of colors is seen so far

I will post a couple of pictures when it cures.

regards, and thank you everyone.

Look forward to the pictures Leo!  I bet VG is pretty close though about "painting them with a broom"...  It's about like pictures of whatever you see online and then you see the real thing up close?  Sheesh!  LOL  I remember watching Baa Baa Black Sheep when I was a kid and the old mechanic saying "these things are held together with beer cans and baling wire".....  I bet most of those old warbirds looked like someone kicked them to pieces on a drunk Saturday night from prop to tail.  LOL  And you KNOW if they were patched wherever, whatever paint they had available was slapped on there with whatever whitewash brush or broom they had available at the time, probably still drying while they took to the air. Ah, anyway.....

Hello Everyone,

Here are some pics of my invasion stripes after I followed the amazing advise of all the contributors of this thread.


Again thank you everyone for all your help and keeping me motivated.

regards,

LEO

Aside from being entirely too perfect, I'd say you got it right!

Looks great Leo, good job!

Hello everyone,

I finally had my maiden on the plane, and it flew very nicely.
by the end pf tha day (Hot humid summer day) I noticed that the paint started to become a bit gooey ( the sun, the notro duel??) , I was wondering what could be the reason, eventhough I had painted the whole plane with 2 coats of rustoleum clear.

What could be done to prvent this from happening the next time I go?
Is there a better clear coat that you would recommand other than the rustoleum clear coat?

regards,

Rustoleum is hit and miss on being fuel proof, as you can see. A really popular product for topcoating latex is the Klass Kote 2 part unrethane clear. Most any automotive 2 part clear will work as well. Acrylic laquers like Lusterkote are fuel proof too, but the solvents in them can attach the latex.

I doubt that rustoleum clear is fuel proof. To be truly fuel proof you need a 2-part automotive urethane clear or an epoxy clear. Nelson's water based clear is fuel resistant up to 15% fuel I think and it gives a better 'painted fabric' look vs. the wet look auto clears.

Few enamels (Rustoleum is an acrylic enamel) are fuel resistant at all unless they have an additive of some kind to make them be. As for fixing your plane, you could top coat the rustoleum clear with a 2 part clear like the Klass Kote, but you'd obviously be adding more weight. Maybe if you only added a fuel proof clear to the places the exhaust hits the worst you'd be ok.

Hi Jester,

I bought duplicolor acrylic lacquer from an automotive department store, I applied a light and a wet coat.
I think I should be ok with 10% nitro.

I will inform you guys about the results on sunday.

regards and thnx alot for all of your replies and help.

Rustoleum is hit and miss on being fuel proof- very true to a point. It seems the flat colors work better IMO. I have it on 2 of my planes and the paint is still holding up after 4 years. However, the trick is we have to keep the plane clean. Make sure no glow oil residue is sitting on it, so after a day of flying, clean your planes all the way until you see no residue of any kind. That's the trick! If you leave oil on the plane, it will start eating at the paint over time.


Pete

3 days after the application of the acrylic lacquer, I went out flying the plane on Sunday, all seemed ok, but after a day in the sun, the acrylic lacquer became sticky and I was not able to clean it out from the oil residue, since it became all sticky and seemed not wanting to dry (from the temperature and the humidity).

So far I have not had good luck with, the paint job since it became dirty and I just could not clean it out.

I am rethinking of repainting the whole plane with a good primer. (rustoleum for the primer and paint, and on clear coat of oil based helmsman clear utherane.  that should fuel proof it.

What do you guys thing? 

1- Can I just repaint the whole plane on top of the paint job and the arcylic lacquer ? (using a good primer first)

2- Will I need to sand the plane first?

regards,
 or will I need to recover it before repainting?
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You can do that, but it will add significant weight. Warbirds already have a high wing loading usually, so you may not be happy with the way it flies once you're done. Stopping short of stripping the whole thing down and starting over, why not try sanding or scraping the lacquer off where the problem is, then clear coating the whole plane with something that is truly fuel proof? An automotive clear coat that has a hardener added will work, as will the Klass Kote mentioned above if you need to brush it. If you do have to totally repaint, you'll wind up with a much nicer flying plane if you go ahead and remove the existing paint. It may be less work though to just take off the covering and start over from scratch.

I just finished a GB Cap 232. a few weeks ago.
I had the same color matching issue, so I also used latex paint.
To fuel proof the paint. I bought a rattle can of clear coat from the auto parts store O'Riely's (sp?). and put one coat over the latex.
I then. used a rattle can of the lusterkote clear coat on top of that.
It worked great.
you do need to wait at least a week, maybe two after painting before you fly. It takes a long time for the laytex paint to dry, especially if it is exterior paint.

Hope this helps.

Youshould have waited at least 2 weeks before sealing the latex with anything. It takes 30 days for a full cure with latex, even longer if the humidity is high and if you used a brush instead of spraying. I use a heat gun in between coats and then I leave the parts out in the sun for a week to help. Laquer is not very fuel proof and it also needs sufficent time to cure. You may want to strip all he paint off and start over. Sorry to say it.