Touching up paint

aftCG

aftCG

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Tacoma, WA
I have this spot on one leading edge where the paint had cracked and a bit of fabric is exposed.
My mechanic described the basics of the repair (basically light sand to feather the edges and touch up with the original type of paint used.

Does anyone here do their own paint touch up?
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Your mechanic a "fabric" guy? A lot depends on what kind of finish that is, but at a minimum I think you will need a piece of surface tape. The leading edge is moving under there (common, and not generally a big problem).

I would find some really good tape - Spruce sells it for big $ - it is clear, with white backing. "Pink" it, and stick it on. Then pink some masking tape to surround the blemish as a "mask". Then carefully hit it with Rustoleum light blue (I can get the exact name if you want - it is ever so slightly darker) and you are done.
 
Sanding it when it is already down to bare fabric will mess up the fibers and it will always look strange. Unless it’s a 2 part paint... then you have to sand!

All paint repairs I’ve done included masking off the area around it, using reducer to bring it down to silver and will allow you to see a even fade of blue to silver to fabric. Then depending on your spraying ability, mask it off for a hard line around the repair or airbrush it in and fade it into the old paint. It’s so small that you could even just dab paint into the crack...
 
Bob Turner said:
Your mechanic a "fabric" guy? A lot depends on what kind of finish that is, but at a minimum I think you will need a piece of surface tape. The leading edge is moving under there (common, and not generally a big problem).
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In his defense, I could be guilty of not listening very well. I think the sanding was intended to be with very fine paper and just used to feather the edge of the chipped paint and improve adhesion of the new paint.
Clifford's suggestion of using reducer may be more graceful and less likely to damage fabric by sanding into it. I didn't know reducer would allow me to remove paint that way.

I do like the tape suggestion though. If I understand what you describe, you are pinking the masking tape and matching it up to the clear tape so I would really just be painting the clear tape.

At the end of my annual my mechanic rattle canned some of my round access covers that didn't match (I don't know about you folks but I've had a couple of those disappear in flight). They're better than yellow or silver on my red/blue/white paint but even this color blind guy isn't faked out. If you've got an off the shelf color that's closer I'm all ears.
 
I saw a tip in a car magazine for masking off an area where you are trying to do a small repair. Lay the masking tape down and then curl the inside edge up around the repair area so the boundary between the old paint and new won't be a distinct line. I thought that that was a clever idea.
 
Bartman said:
I saw a tip in a car magazine for masking off an area where you are trying to do a small repair. Lay the masking tape down and then curl the inside edge up around the repair area so the boundary between the old paint and new won't be a distinct line. I thought that that was a clever idea.
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This actually works very well! I like it more on larger areas though. I tried it on a little 2 inch by 2 inch spot and wasn’t too happy with it and felt an airbrush would have been better
 
@aftCG not saying the sanding is wrong, it may work for him! Reducer does wonders with some wiping, but make sure it doesn’t run down the fabric or it will leave marks. If it’s aerothane or other systems equivalents though it won’t work.

If you check the logs it should say the system that was used and the paint colors. You could buy a small can of it for 40 bucks and it will last for any repairs you ever need and will match
 
Good luck on the paint match. I painted my J-3 with Ford Commercial Truck yellow. Even the Ford dealer cannot match it. My $25 rattle can was so far off it might as well have been blue.

The pinked edge trick is to match the surface tapes on the rest of the airplane. For this repair, all you need is to cover the blemish. Matching the tape edge might be tricky.

If you use Butyrate, you can compound/polish until the interface goes away, assuming you decide to do a full-on fabric repair. And I believe the blue is Bahama or Miami blue - a standard Randolph color that may not have been changed when the company was sold. But the Rustoleum is close.

I know folks who have successfully blended repair paint into the original with successively thinned coats. I cannot do it, which is why I use pinked masking tape. And I am quite skilled at airbrush techniques, being a model train freak and an ex-artist-illustrator.
 
The blue is usually "Miami Blue" - a Randolph color.
My Dec has pretty much the same paint scheme, and my spare cans say Miami Blue and Colorado Red.
Your leading edges look like they are different from the rest of the wing.
 
Bob Turner said:
The blue is usually "Miami Blue" - a Randolph color.
My Dec has pretty much the same paint scheme, and my spare cans say Miami Blue and Colorado Red.
Your leading edges look like they are different from the rest of the wing.
Click to expand...

Good point and kind of odd, no? Are both wings' leading edges like that? If not it might be an indication of a fabric repair or ongoing problem that is more serious than that one crack.
 
Bob Turner said:
The blue is usually "Miami Blue" - a Randolph color.
My Dec has pretty much the same paint scheme, and my spare cans say Miami Blue and Colorado Red.
Your leading edges look like they are different from the rest of the wing.
Click to expand...
That's funny. That color contrast is barely noticable in person. The tops of the wings have been resprayed at some point.
 
Stits Fabric. If you have a replacement aileron that is painted with Aerothane Yellow. With the fabric being in excellent shape, what method would be best for painting it Insignia White without having bleed through?

Thank you.
 
For butyrate dope, the ceconite process manual says wet sand, do a coat of silver, then 2 color coats. For yellow and red, the manual advises doing a coat of white after silver to make the color coat brighter. For a white top coat, you might need extra coats.

Dope might be different than Stitts though, since each coat of dope melts into the previous coat.

A more general comment about this thread is to obtain and follow the process manual for the system originally used on your aircraft. Mixing materials and methods is poor craftsmanship.
 
Appreciated.

I have the Stits Manual but it doesn't refer to this situation. The chap who's doing the repair has a plan. I just wanted to know how others might tackle it.

Thank you for the advice.
 
Insignia white is used to cover silver. It does it in one coat. I suspect it will do the same to yellow.

That is the big advantage of white - it is opaque, and covers well. There are some paints and colors that are called "bleeders" - red springs to mind - and never, ever mark anything with a Sharpie or a ball point pen. They really bleed.
 
I saw a cub recently where they put the cub yellow directly on top of silver. It looked terrible.
 
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