Preparations for Painting
Introduction
Is your paint job the original from the mid-70's? Don't have the minimum of $12,000 to take your Grumman to a paint shop? Then consider doing the grunt work yourself. As any good painter will tell you, painting is all about the prep work. The prep work is something most people can do on their own because it does not involve a whole lot of skill - just time and patience. Whether to paint it yourself is another question. If you have never shot paint before, seriously consider paying someone to do this part of the job unless you have a serious learning bug and are willing to practice a lot before even touching your plane. Applying the paint is the least expensive part of the whole process.
Preparing a Grumman for painting really involves only one more step than a plane that is riveted together. This step is the protection of the bondlines with aluminum/foil tape if using chemical stripper. That's all that's different. Really! However, all of the steps are discussed and illustrated with actual Grumman pictures.
Key Steps in the Preparation Process
There are six basic steps in preparing your plane for painting.
- Stripping the Paint
- Repair Work
- Metal Conditioning
- Prime
- Body Filler
- Paint
In the past, one would normally do any filling work before priming. However, the current thinking is to do the filling work after priming, at least for aircraft structures. Since sanding is required on the filler and aluminum is a soft metal and we often work on thin sheets, it is easy to damage the skin during the sanding process and not notice it. By priming first, the primer gives you an indication about how far you've gone and how aggressive you've been. Here's a quote from Larry Matteo:
If you have no previous experience working on aluminum and you're planning on doing this yourself or with some others not trained in aluminum painting processes, I'd strongly suggest you do a little practice on something other than your plane. In my 5 years with Grumman supervising the paint shop, I've seen even experienced painters cause oil canning due to improper sanding, even by hand. I've seen several holes sanded in wings, ailerons and elevators. It don't work the same as a car body panel or a boat hull. It is an entirely different animal.
