Ceconite rejuvenation

Crap, got $500 worth of nitrate and butyrate dope I just ordered. Arrives on Tuesday. Need to get rid of that. Maybe Aircraft Spruce will accept it at Sun n Fun and save me some shipping cost.
 
schemes are very personal. you hate Starburst, I hate all the modern swoopy schemes that hide the nice lines of our planes. that trainer scheme you mentioned looked good on just about everything with the blue fuselage, striped rudder and yellow wings. I did an RC Super Kaos like that when I was in my twenties and it looked hot! Roundels on a Super D though?

What does ACA's vendor charge for an interior kit?
 
Often simple is elegant. I liked the Citabria scheme that was all horizontal stripes.

I had my interior including side panels done by a local seamstress for around $300. I had to glue the side panels. Very happy.
 
Changed my mind AGAIN. Put nitrate on and decided I liked how it looked. Finished masking tonight, and will start spraying dope tomorrow. Hoping to be done in time to fly my son to SnF.
 
I think the hardest part of this for me has been making the decisions, once made life seems better, looking forward to finished project.
 
Big Ed,
They are giving prizes at Sun n Fun for Decathlons. I think one is for the rattiest. I pasted this from the Acro headquarters. Remember they will give you two passes if you park in the Acro section.
"PLAQUE and RIBBON AWARDS are awaiting the PITTSs and DECATHLONs to celebrate these Anniversaries: FURTHEST DISTANCE FLOWN, MOST HISTORIC-VINTAGE-MODIFIED and “RATTIEST” Award ceremony will take place SAT 17 APRIL @ 12PM!! "
 
Helo pilot said:
Big Ed,
They are giving prizes at Sun n Fun for Decathlons. I think one is for the rattiest. I pasted this from the Acro headquarters. Remember they will give you two passes if you park in the Acro section.
"PLAQUE and RIBBON AWARDS are awaiting the PITTSs and DECATHLONs to celebrate these Anniversaries: FURTHEST DISTANCE FLOWN, MOST HISTORIC-VINTAGE-MODIFIED and “RATTIEST” Award ceremony will take place SAT 17 APRIL @ 12PM!! "
Click to expand...
I totally would have won rattiest 2 weeks ago. Sadly, that ship has sailed.

I want very badly to fly in, but at this point I am not sure I can get it done in time. I just finished masking it to spray. That took me the better part of 2 days. If I shot 2 coats a day starting today, I could get it sprayed by next Weds and reassemble on Thursday. But I will be out of town tomorrow thru Sunday. To get all the coats sprayed, I would have to camp at the airfield and spray 3 coats a day. However, I have major business opportunities at work right now. I need to focus on those.

Alternatively I could paint thru silver, slap a temp number on, and go to SnF. But then I would have to remask to finish, and that was a lot of work.
 
Sounds like you are too meticulous in masking. I thought I was dragging it when I took 2 hours to mask the last Cub I helped repair. On the other hand, I usually wind up compounding a couple of overspray areas - 20 minutes max.

I always unmask if I will be working more than overnight. Tape has a way of getting itself attached . . .
 
I pull tapes as well if it'll be a day or more. They seem to gain adhesion as time goes. God forbid they should get wet!
 
Bob Turner said:
Sounds like you are too meticulous in masking. I thought I was dragging it when I took 2 hours to mask the last Cub I helped repair. On the other hand, I usually wind up compounding a couple of overspray areas - 20 minutes max.

I always unmask if I will be working more than overnight. Tape has a way of getting itself attached . . .
Click to expand...

I substantially disassembled the plane. Took out the rear side windows, took off the door, opened up the left side pilot's window, butterflied up the boot cowl, etc. Intent was to get access to all the wraparound fabric where glued to the frame to get some protective coating on it. Some of the uncoated exposed fabric under the boot cowl, weatherstripping, etc appear to have deteriorated over 40 years. But I didn't want a bunch of overspray wafting around in my interior, so I masked the perimeter of the window openings pretty carefully. Probably was too detailed, but it was my first time. Better to be too careful than do a shit job and not realize it until later.

Most of the tape is on frame members, plastic, metal parts, etc. Little if any on doped surfaces.
 
Once I cleaned it out, the window frame was ok. I was mistaking the original construction adhesive for rust.

Bulkhead gonna leave alone for now. Maybe one day I'll get in there and brace it up, or try and insert a new one. It doesn't really have a function other than holding the shape during construction.
 
Did 2 coats of butyrate on Friday before going out of town. Hope to do 2 more coats this evening, then sand and sliver tomorrow and Weds. If all goes well, white base on Thursday, yellow on Friday, and assemble to fly to SnF on Saturday morning.

The order of colors has me puzzled. Randolph says to always paint yellow or red on top of white, not directly on silver. Intially was planning to spray entire fuselage white, then mask numbers and spray top half yellow. Final step was blue stripes, to be done later.

However, the blue stripe bordering yellow complicates that a bit. Will have to overlap one or the other to get a sharp line, which will leave a ridge underneath. If you look at most later model Citabrias, the stripe style has white between the stripe and the top half color, presumably to solve that problem.

That gave me an idea. Paint the blue stripe first, directly on silver. No masking, just make sure the swath of blue covers the area where the stripes will be, and fade it above and below. Then put down 2 tapes, one for each stripe, on top of the blue. Seal tape edges with clear dope, then spray the entire fuselage white. Mask off the area below the top stripe and paint the top half yellow. Pull the two tapes and viola, 2 blue stripes with clean edge to yellow on top and white in middle/bottom. That also has the appeal of ensuring the blue stripes are uniform width.

Thoughts?

Never done parallel stripes before. Any tips for getting them on there straight?

PXL_20210327_072756724.webp
 
FWIW,
Always paint lightest color on bottom and darkest on top.
White over silver.
Tape n- number and border for the yellow.
Shoot yellow.
Tape bottom of yellow for top of the blue trim and measure down to where you want the bottom of the bottom blue stripe. Now run 1 piece of tape in the middle of your blue area the width you want your white line between the blue lines.
Shoot the blue.
Allow the paint to cure a few weeks and lightly go over the paint edges with 1500 grit wet sandpaper.

A bit of rubbing compound if you think it needs it and you're done...

JMPO and YMMV

Chris
 
I think Ed's idea will work. Blue will go over silver pretty well. Yellows, oranges, and maybe red absolutely need a white undercoat. Insignia white, not a darker color.
Again, be careful with tape. See if you can get low adhesion painter's tape.
 
Hiperbiper said:
FWIW,
Always paint lightest color on bottom and darkest on top.
White over silver.
Tape n- number and border for the yellow.
Shoot yellow.
Tape bottom of yellow for top of the blue trim and measure down to where you want the bottom of the bottom blue stripe. Now run 1 piece of tape in the middle of your blue area the width you want your white line between the blue lines.
Shoot the blue.
Allow the paint to cure a few weeks and lightly go over the paint edges with 1500 grit wet sandpaper.

A bit of rubbing compound if you think it needs it and you're done...

JMPO and YMMV

Chris
Click to expand...
I think I like your plan better, mainly because I can put off the stripe until I have time to do it right.
 
First coat of silver. Looking like a real plane. A few fugly areas where I was really sloppy with super seam cement. But within the bounds of acceptable appearance.

PXL_20210413_215603158.jpgPXL_20210413_215636073.jpg
 
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Thanks. Found a few of the cement runs were too thick for sanding. Had to clean with MEK. Missed a few when sanding clear. Haven't decided if I will try to fix tomorrow before 2nd coat of silver, or just go with it.

I left old tapes on the bottom longerons, top edge of rear windows, and top center seam. Was pleased that they did not pop, except for a few small spots under the door. Fixed those by melting edge with thinner and bonding tape edge to fabric with Super Seam cement.

Factory definitely painted in order White - Yellow - Blue. I think I figured out the taping scheme.
  1. Paint whole fuselage white.
  2. Tape where center white stripe between 2 blue stripes will go. Mask area below tape.
  3. Paint top half of fuselage yellow. Fade the bottom edge so no sharp tape line.
  4. Tape top edge of top blue stripe and bottom edge of bottom blue stripe. Mask area above and below. Leave center tape in place.
  5. Paint blue. Pull all tapes.
 
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