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Posted for randy snarr <randylsnarr@yahoo.com>:
My 2 cents worth,
after painstakingly filling holes and holes and holes I can tell you it is a
pain to get them all. After trying many methods I have concluded that brushing
the first coat or 2 is the way to go. You will make some work for yourself to
sand to do this but to get a good finish you must fill the holes with
something. Don't be afraid to use 80 or 100 grit on the first few coats to
smooth out the brush marks. There will be plenty of priming and sanding after
that to fill in the scratches.
Oh and dont use the compressor to keep blowing off the surface. You only
empty the holes out. Wipe it off with a suitable solvent instead. Go slow and
brush in several directions with thinned out primer. It will penetrate the
holes better thin. Be careful to not to sand through the primer to the surface
especially on the edges/corners, you will only expose the airframe and it's
many holes again. Spray 2 or 3 thin coats and sand as necessary.
One other item before the above process I took superfil body filler and used
a one sided razor blade and with some pressure squeegied it all over the
surface. Working small areas at a time being careful to work the stuff into
the weave. it takes an extremely small amout of filler to do this. If you do
this right you will leave a surface that looks wet but does not change the
color of the surface except the holes will be light blue (filled with filler).
This filler is far lighter than primer and sands easier too. Do this and you
will save your self much work down the road. Follow it up with the above and
you are on your way to a nice finish.
One last trick that I learned from the Vari EZ guys. Make yourself 3 sanding
blocks that are the size of a sheet of sand paper out of fiber glass. Make one
1/16" thick and one 3/32 and the 3 rd 1/8 "or so making sure to they cure out
FLAT and smooth as if they were laid up on super smooth surface with a release
like clear tape on a piece of glass. Once they cure trim the outer edge to
match the 8 x 10 " sand paper and add 2 pieces of 3/4" alum angle along the
long side for a hand hold. On the other side, use automotive spray sand paper
adhesive to stick what ever grit paper you are using. You will have 3 sanding
tools that have varying degress of flex. They do a beautiful job all over the
airplane. On the curves they do thier magic. When the paper is used up simply
peel off and stick another on and keep going. This is good step after board
sanding go get the surface FLAT!
I am sure there are many ways to do the job but I believe the above is
shortest distance to a beautiful finish job.
The OSH judges liked it enough to give me an outstanding workmanship award
which is probably 85% paint work...See Attached.
Hope that helps!!!
Keep at it!!
Randy L. Snarr
235/320
98%
104 hours
Upholstry next week!
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