stunthanger.com
Building Tips and technical articles. => Paint and finishing => Topic started by: jjorgensen on March 19, 2009, 05:00:28 PM
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This is my latest experiment ready for trim colors. I wanted to be able to work in my basement over the winter months and decided to try what I have been using to cover free flight rubber models. Floor polish. The fusalage was done with minwax and medium silkspan. The wings were covered with medium silkspan and a 75% mixture of floor polish and water. This combo made for the easiest covering job I have done with silkspan. Paint the bare wood first with a 100% floor polish. Then use a foam brush and wet the silkspan with the 75% mixture and apply wet, pulling out any wrinkles. After it dries put on a couple of 75% mixture coats. I then sprayed the whole plane with Rustoleum primer. After sanding I tried to put on a color coat and was disappointed that it would not cover. It was not compatable with the floor polish. My solution was to put a light coat of spray minwax over everything to seal it. After that the rustoleum covered fine and this is the result so far. The silkspan is still pliable, not brittle like it was on my last experiment using nitrate covered by rustoleum (without buterate). We will see how it does throught the flying season.
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OK, So how about a closeup of the products so we can see what they are?
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Randy,
Looks like Minwax and Rustoleum to me.
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I'm kind of confused by the use of floor polish ? Does floor polish dry ? or remain kind of waxey / oiley ?
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The floor polish is called future and it does have a slight wax component which is probably why I couldn't use the rustoleum right over it. The clear minwax poly does cover it and seal it however so I could then go over the poly with the rustoleum. I'll post a closeup of the products tonight.
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Plastic model guys use Future for a clearcoat on their cars and stuff, its actually more of an Acrylic than a wax.
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Here's a better picture of the products used
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Plastic model guys use Future for a clearcoat on their cars and stuff, its actually more of an Acrylic than a wax.
I build plastic models, and yet when I paint them, I either paint them with enamel, or like my 1932 Ford Deuce that took best in show at a model car contest at a car show, was sprayed with acylic laquer and rubbed it out, and looks very good.
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Ok,time to pick more ideas here. So the futura polish is brushed on and the mini wax is a can spray? S I could do this with out needing a spray gun ? An special areas that your worked over to help make the plane fuel proof ?
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No spray gun is necessary for this. Brush on the floor polish, after it dries you can either use the spray can minwax to lay on a thin coat or you can use use thinned minwax out of the can. I use a 50/50 water to minwax mixture. That seals the floor polish and then you can over it with rustoleum.
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Do you cover the whole plan with silkspan ? I have a bottle of floor polish and acid brished 3 coats on a test piece of bare balsa. 1 side left alone the other side sanded with 500 grit sandpaper. I'm waiting for it to dry and see how it looks.
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I do cover the whole plane with silkspan although I cover the fusalage and flaps using minwax out of the can. I don't use the minwax on the wings and stab because it dries too fast for the silkspan to shrink tight on the open bays. That is primarily why I use the floor wax on anything with open bays.
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Jim, do you have any finished photos, and have you flown it enough to see how it holds up?