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paint question

The original post was asking about problems he was having with Stewart and the paint can in the background is a Stewart's can so I assumed he was using that but I could be wrong.
Good eye, I see the paint can now. I guess it is Stewart's. Maybe too cold, not enough catalyst or bad or old top coat.
 
Different paint question this time. My horizontal stabilizers were covered using the Polyfiber technique with Polytone as the topcoat. Cracks in the finish have occurred just behind the leading edge tube. My question is how to fix it?
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Your Poly Tone is in need of rejuvenator. There really isn't any need to remove any of the existing coating with MEK or any other solvent. Clean the fabric well with a prep-wipe/silicone and wax remover. I'd get a quart of Poly Spray, and use an artist's brush to apply some of the silver mud from the bottom of the can into the cracks, then wet sand off the excess once it dries. Now apply the RJ-1200 rejuvenator. This will add the flex agents back into the coating and make them flexible again. Once rejuvenated, most people apply another cross-coat of color so the coating is not only flexible again, it will look like a new coating.

These cracks will start to develop elsewhere pretty soon. The cracks behind your leading edge are the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. You'll see more of them develop elsewhere shortly if you don't get some rejuvenator on that Poly Tone. Once rejuvenated, it should go another 10 years before any new cracking problems appear.

Good luck!
 
Thank you for the insightful reply. I will order and try the rejuvenator. Any reason I could not top coat with poly urethane over the poly tone to match the other fabric paint?
 
Thank you for the insightful reply. I will order and try the rejuvenator. Any reason I could not top coat with poly urethane over the poly tone to match the other fabric paint?

No. You would just lose the advantages Poly Tone provides once it is top-coated with a polyurethane finish. You would not be able to rejuvenate the finish again, and patching would become more problematic.

Keep in mind that Poly-Fiber's STC covers the color coats now, so be sure to use Poly Tone, Aero Thane or Randolph's Ranthane for the color coats.
 
Any reason I could not top coat with poly urethane over the poly tone to match the other fabric paint?

The other disadvantage of that is that the thicker the topcoat, the more prone to cracks it is. Plus as Dan said, you lose the ability to rejuvinate.
John
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I decided to fill and sand the minor cracks in the stabilizers and then rejuvenate the poly tone and re coat with 2 layers of new Polytone according to the instructions. It looks nice but time will tell.
After waiting 30 days inside the house for the Stewarts top coat to cure on my ailerons I decided to wait no longer. It was too sticky to sand so I just added another topcoat layer which cured just fine.
 
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