At best using a synthetic modified alkyd like R-O is a short term finish. The material looses flexability fairly quickly and will fail on fabric. On metal parts it is fine and has been used for years. Fabric though.....bad idea. Nothing against R-O as a product, but the type of material itself is completely wrong.Originally Posted by bookmaker
Pietenpol photos. Painted with Rustoleum.
Dale Cavin
Florida Panhandle
Current Project: Airdrome Aeroplanes Full Size Nieuport 17
Since when is Rustoleum a "synthetic modified alkyd"? (unless the formula has changed???) I thought it was a fairly basic oil based (fish oil if I am not mistaken) enamel. It is a bit heavy to use on aircraft if you don't thin it, but my first truck was painted in Rustoleum (Ford Tractor Blue) & it didn't rust before I was hit by an idiot driver several years later in Terrible Hole, IN.
Mike,
It always has been. Only one of the primers contains "fish oil" and that is the "damp proof rusty metal primer". When they say it is an "oil" based paint, they are referring to plant oils, not fish. The plant oils are broken down into poly and tri-glycerides, and those are further modified for the resins in the paint. As normally used it is an oxidizing type curing finish that uses metallic salts and atmospheric oxygen to cure. It can however also be crosslinked with a polyisocyanate to cure faster and have better UV resistance. Synthetic enamels like R-O have been used since the 1930's for aviation, especially in WW2, however it was found to be unsuitable for fabric, hence the use of dopes on fabric. The longevity is just not there, even with "flex" additives.
Last edited by Aaron Novak; 10-29-2013 at 06:32 AM.
I had to do a repair on my wing and needed to touch up the paint after the repair. I also did a few small patches and needed these area's touched up. So what to do. I went to my local auto paint store that I purchased all my paint when building my hotrod.
Talked with the man and he had just what I needed to do a touch up. This was kinda a test anyway. I did this two years ago and she has not peeled or cracked. Looks just as the day I did it. The paint supply house has a system and they take auto paint and put it in rattle cans. I took a small piece of fabric in for color match. This young Lady comes out, maybe 18 yrs old, and takes my little piece out into the sunshine. As she is holding a chip chart she says you need this one. I had picked another. I did not argue and she gave me a small can of the paint I needed. She then took a small amount of this paint and put it into a couple rattle cans by using the machine they had.
I paid my small fee and off I went. I have to say the paint was a perfect match and it has held up great. It is an ImRon paint. I thought for sure it would crack or something. It only took a very small amount to do the repair I believe 3 cans in total, I am going to repaint the complete airplane using this method. I will post a video of me doing this when I do. It was going to be this year but this year its a new engine.
I will post some pics of this repair and what the paint looks like today if any cares to see.
Tony
Aaron, if people are having success with it, might be hard to convince them otherwise. I would have no problems "experimenting" with an alternative fabric finish coating. That's what it's all about.
Well, I guess I learned something new today.
Marty,
Its not experimenting if it has been around for years. Back around WW1 using enamel over nitrate dope was common. Sometimes the dope was pigmented with a clear enamel, sometimes the enamel was pigmented. With the creation of the butyrate dopes, the nitrate/enamel system was abandoned for obvious reasons. So the question of the system "working" is not the issue. However I just cannot forsee spending all the time and money covering an aircraft, to save a couple bucks on the finish that will result in a drasticly shorter life than say polytone. For Historical aircraft I think its pretty neat though. Realisticly though in the grand scheme of covering your homebuilt, what is the cost difference between using a traditional topcoat vs something else? Maybe $250.....maybe?
You are so right. When or if I ever do recover my airplane I am using latex. I only went with the repair I did because the builder used auto paint in the building process. I wanted to follow what he had done. Saying that the auto paint did not hold up well. Now I am not sure if maybe the paint made 15 years ago is the paint made today, today's paint could be different I am not a chemist.
But Latex will be my paint of choice on a complete recover job. With lots of wet sanding to get that awesome look.
A friend just painted his Bi-Plane a year or so ago. He lurks around this site but never posts, maybe he will post a comment here. I'm not real sure what paint he used but he used a fresh air supply fed through a hood and he still had an allergic reaction to the paint. This was so bad it made him stop working for sometime. I hope he chimes in on this.
He wore a paint suit and all protection they call for. Just a heads up, some of this stuff is very bad on your health.
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