Hey gang,
I am having a problem with some light purple lusterkote paint that I bought to paint my cowl on my Edge 540T.
The paint comes out looking like splatter paint, I have shook this can until my arm aches and it still comes out the same.
I am sanding the paint off and have ordered another can of the paint and was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what was done to correct it.
Thanks,
L

Did you heat it up in a pail of hot (not boiling hot, but tap water hot) water? I got "ok" results with lusterkote....

~Todd

I have found the pigment in lustrekote to be too big. Some colors spray ok and some dont. My problems were with yellow. Was getting black spots out of the can. Took it back to the LHS and tried all their cans and had the same problem. Sanded it down and went with yellow rustoleum. I prefer to use 21st century and perfect when I can. But perfect is so expensive and 21st century doesnt have a wide selection. I also had the spitting problem with yellow, grey and some other color I cant remember. I hate using the stuff but sometimes you gotta decide if its worth the hassle to save on cost. It does better if you do many very light coats. Warming the can did no good for me at all. I think a very low humidity day got the best results, cant count on that very often here.
Edwin

I've stopped using Lusterkote completely. Having had too many problems getting it to spray right and yes I warm my cans up and put them on a shaker and have a clean dry place to spray. On top of that the quality of the paint varies considerably from lot to lot,both in pigment and gloss. There are better alternatives available for me.
Dennis

Thanks all, I will try the new can that I got today and see what happens.
Thanks again.

I tried some this weekend to see if it had improved any. Nope! Still spits and doesnt cover very well. Gonna switch to perfect paint. Its expensive, but I just want to get this rebuild finished. Will be using latex paint custom mixed on the other project, 1/5 P-47.
Edwin

Have you ever considered using latex ? I use latex on almost all of the painted areas on my planes. After the latex "cures" (7 - 10 days average cure time ) I clear coat it with 2 coats of water base polyurethane to make it fuel resistant.

A couple of pluses to the latex:

It can be color matched (except for metalics ) if you bring a sample of the color in.

Cost runs ABOUT $10.00 per QUART

No fumes

If you screw up the painting, it is easily removed (within 12 hours anyway ) with a wet cloth.

Goes on AND adheres well over almost everything.

Soap and water clean up.

How much have you flown with this water based polyurethane? Only oil based is hot fuel resistant. There was a big discussion at one of our club meetings about this. One of our members is a finishing expert in the furniture industry and works with enamels, lacquers, acrylics, water and oil based, you name it. He has tried most all of them on his planes (he builds mostly 1/4 scale WWI stuff) and his extensive, and my very limited, experience with water base poly is that it will only last the first couple of times it gets hit with exhaust spray, then it and whatever is under it begins to wrinkle and peel. Is does dry clear and stay that way, where the oil based will yellow, but oil based gives much better protection.