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Building Tips and technical articles. => Paint and finishing => Topic started by: Don Jenkins on June 10, 2017, 06:11:40 AM
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For some reason the nose of my Scorpio started to blister after the first day out in the sun. I kept putting off the repair for a few reasons, mainly I needed to mix up paint to match the green and I had never attempted to do this type of repair. After 2 years there were 14 blisters and I could no longer stand them, so I got up the courage to cut them out. I used a new number 11 blade, then masked each area and brushed on many, many coats of primer over a period of several days to ensue proper drying and to build up the repair area to above the existing finish. Then wet sanded and airbrushed thinned primer and wet sanded again. Then I masked the general area and air brushed color and wet sanded again, then another coat of color. Then I airbrushed 5 coats of clear dope, wet sanded with 2000 and polished. The nose now looks better than the rest of the plane. I now have the courage to "cut into" good flying airplanes.
Don
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Man, that looks good. I have experienced a similar problem with my Oriental in the sun. I too have small blisters from the heat and I hav eoften wondered f I should dig into this. Nicely done. Ken
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I would have been more inclined to sand the whole nose down to the layer from which the blisters were springing, and go up from there. But I tend to be a "done is the enemy of perfection" sort of guy, which is why I'm flying a ratty 5-year old plane with a project that's going to be Really Nice When It's Done in my shop.
Follow up on how it does in the sun this year, please!
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Congrats on a successful repair. I know how hard this is, its as much effort or more than the original finishing job. That said I'm inclined to agree with Tim on this one. You have any idea what caused the blisters ? Assuming original finish is all dope cause that's what you did with the repair.