Almost all Ban-bis are painted inside with Zolatone. The recommendations are
for a pressure pot system and I got a contractor to paint my first plane
with such a set up. However I later touched up some smaller parts with a
standard gun and it worked fine. One of my customers used an underseal gun
to good effect. I think the over size nozzle is the answer.
Jerry
Jerry@ban-bi.com or LTS@avnet.co.uk
www.Ban-bi.com or www.avnet.co.uk/touchdown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Hagar" <hagargs@earthlink.net>
Subject: Zolatone Heaven
> After using the inside of the wheel well for practice and making a gloppy
> mess of the whole situation I came up with a good routine for the inside
> of the aircraft. The wheel well was exposed to Zolatone's own power spray
> touch up gun from Spruce, and a pressure feed gun. Half assed results
> obtained from both. I rightly expected this as their web page gives
> about seven pages of instruction on the care and feeding of the stuff.
> It sits and moves when you open up the can and look in. The guys over at
> Phoenix composits even bitched about using it in a Europa they are doing.
The
> El-cheapo pressure feed gun was obtained from Harbor freight (Item
> #00215) for just slightly more than the cost of a gallon of the paint.
> Typical setup costs with a are well over $200. In any case
> I didn't want the interior looking like the inside of the wheel well. I
> had one more opportunity for practice to try something different. The
> seat bases and the baggage bay access panels need the treatment and can
> be easily sanded or remade if glopped up. The paint is too expensive
> (Spruce $55/gallon, local paint store $32/quart!) to practice on
> something that positively has to be thrown away. The Zolatone people say
> the paint likes big nozzles, though when you spend $60 for the gun you
> really can't expect to get what you want. Number drills work in a pinch.
> I opened up the nozzle in steps making sure to pressurize the gun with
> water in it to make sure the needle would keep the nozzle sealed. I got
> to the point where a drop of water leaked out under pressure. Oops too
> far. However the viscous paint stayed put just fine. Final hole size
> .063~.067". My top and bottom fuselages are still apart so much masking
> was done and assumptions were made where further layups are going to be
> made (fuel filler, baggage bulkhead etc). A small amount of paint was
> put in the cup to avoid a lot of clean upwhen making another unacceptable
> mess. The panels were sprayed, and wonder of wonders the finish went on
> like a professional had done it! Lets do some spraying!!! Fill that cup
> up. The top, bottom, and entire instrument module as well as the center
> panel between the doors was done. They all came out looking great enough
> so that I am going to go with mimimal to no fabric/padding
> interior. We'll save some weight and look a little military inside. I
> used a gallon and a quart and went with Zolatone's basic blue. I'll have
> to see how it turns out when I go in and paint over the layups after
> everything is bonded together and wired up. --- Steve HagarA143Mesa, AZ---
> hagargs@earthlink.net
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