Painting VGS

Do I need to prime VGs before I put a coat of Polyurethane on?


Thanks

Tim

Scuff and paint

behindpropellers said:

Do I need to prime VGs before I put a coat of Polyurethane on?


Thanks

Tim

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depends on the paint, but most likely yes... I always do... I am not one to skip steps and then have problems later... also the paint will usually flow nicer over a primed surface and into corners & edges ... don't hose it on or it will creep from corners and edges...

to prep take a piece of clean cardboard lay rows rib stitch brace tape sticy side up, taped down every 6 inch or so, and put vgs ever 1 1/2 inches

prime and paint and that was the easy part ... now you get the exacto knife out to clean them up once dry & removed from tape

Tim, Read the instructions. They are alodined to some Boeing spec and require no priming. I have never primed them after talking to the folks at Micro and never had a problem. I stick some masking tape down a piece of cardboard, upside down and stick it down every so often so it doesn't blow up. Kinda looks like Frankenstein stitches. :lol:

Steve Pierce said:

Tim, Read the instructions. They are alodined to some Boeing spec and require no priming. I have never primed them after talking to the folks at Micro and never had a problem. I stick some masking tape down a piece of cardboard, upside down and stick it down every so often so it doesn't blow up. Kinda looks like Frankenstein stitches. :lol:

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Thanks for the input. I don't have them here yet and I wanted to get an idea of what I needed to do as far as paint/prep.

Tim

I'm with Steve on this one.

6 or 8 years ago, I bought VG's for my Cessna. I did precisely what Steve just posted, used a rattle can of Krylon that seemed pretty close to the color of the plane. Plane was parked outside year round for at least 4 years after painting the VGs.

They have now faded just a tiny bit, but unless you get up there and look at them close up, you'd never know they weren't on the plane when it was painted.

MTV

I always thought I would leave the positioning template in place and mask the balance the wing and should them then remove the template. I presume these are Micro VG's with the roll paper template. A small jam gun turned back to almost nothing or an airbrush will do the a nice job. If you've never used an airbrush, its important to thin the paint a little more than usual for a better job. There are epoxy primers that you can shoot over with the hour with your final color coat.

I'm with Steve. Clean them with paint prep then stick them on a long strip of wide masking tape and spray them. Mine have been on two seasons (floatplane) and they still look great.

Good luck,
Erik