So I built a test plane for a new (to me) finish system prior to putting it on my new pattern practice plane I'm building. I built a 1/2a nobler to try out duplicolor lacquer finished with dope. So i started off with 2 coats of minwax lacquer to seal the wood, sand lightly, 2 coats of duplicolor high build primer sanded between coats. Here's where i went wrong. I wanted a star spangled paint scheme, with the fuse being blue with white stars and the wings red and white stripes. So I painted the whole plane white duplicolor with the intention of masking off the stars and red stripes. I then took some vinyl precut stars (the kind that are permanent) and stuck them to the white and proceeded to spray the blue. When the blue was dry, I started to peel off the stars. Not only did the blue not peel cleanly around the 1/4" stars, it also peeled white off the primer. So what I ended up with was some totally gray cleanly outlined stars and then some where the white peeled up in a sheet off the primer, leaving a half circle of nasty where a star should ahve been. I ended up just spraying the whole damn thing blue in frustration. As far as I can tell, I made two mistakes.
1) The white over the primer should have been put on with a wet first coat. It was not my intention to do a dry coat, but having never used the spray duplicolor, I was not aware of how fast it dried. What happened was that the paint was basically dry by the time it hit the surface of the plane, thus causing a lack of adhesion. This stuff dries to the touch in seemingly a minute or so. Put it on heavy and wet. When I put the blue on, I did it in one nice wet coat. It looked great and I let it dry for a few hours before peeling the tape. It stuck to the white great.
2) The vinyl precut stars are not good at all for masking duties. These are permanent and not meant to be peeled off. I think had I not used these stars and cut them out of masking tape or vinyl mask, I could have gotten away with the lack of adhesion from the white to the primer.
Live and learn. I just kept telling myself that this is the reason that I did the test plane. Does anyone know where I can get some precut stars out of actual vinyl mask that I don't have to special order from a sign shop?
Topic: Dont do what I did - duplicolor spray cans (Read 1475 times)