I've used PPG paint on the interior. It's a single stage catalyzed polyurethane. Tough stuff, and not too bad to shoot. Actually it was too shiny one the interior, so I went back and adjusted the gun and tried to get a "speckled" surface. That worked out pretty well, with the exceptions of a couple runs and some drips on the sub floor. The 1991 Toyota gray is nice. A lighter gray than the military gray, but not even close to white. Simple and clean.
As far as the exterior, well I don't know if I want to tackle that. Vince Frazier did a beautiful job on his rocket with 2 stage PPG polyurethane, and Man, it turned out gorgeous! I like his choice of colors, and I also like his military scheme.
I really like Tom Martin's HR II. His paint is very clean and simple, and the colors are nice. I thought long and hard about copying his paint scheme.
Now, here's what I'm dreaming up. I can't afford a P-51. I thought about moving up to a Yak-3 some day. I've always had a warm spot in my heart for these big, beautiful Russian WWII fighters. I've searched the web, and I've seen many pics of real ships, and even some very nice scale models with slick paint schemes.
The one I like best is a rendering of an actual aircraft. I don't know the gent who produced it, and I can't read his signature. If I could find him, I would acknowledge him and thank him.
Here's a link to my EVO line drawing.... it's a BMP file, over 600K.
And then a little variation on the theme... single number, no yellow, larger star and number, larger white bolt:
I like the green and putty. Losing the yellow was OK, but I think it still needs something.
Here's a THREE VIEW of the F1 EVO:
Temporary N Numbers
I'm still at a loss as to how to paint this
dang Rocket. You know, the more gray primer I shoot on the plane,
the less I like it. Conversely, the more GREEN (sorta OD) primer I
shoot on the plane, the BETTER I like it!I didn't think that the local FSDO guys would like the N numbers I wrote on the vellum with magic marker, so I figured I'd better go ahead and shoot some paint.
Originally I was going to get vinyl lettering and do it up nice. Then I figured that would be a waste of money, and a PITA to get them off when I'm really ready to paint. I have lots of self etching primer and some flat black rustoleum laying around. Might as well use it.
Off with the vellum in the panel just below and ahead of the HS. Tape it off with some of that cool dental wrap that I have and a nice solid coat of green primer.
This pic does not do the green color justice. It is VERY close to WWII OD.
Of course I scotchbrited and cleaned the surface before painting. And after the primer dried, it was time to shoot some alphabetic and numeric stuff.
I went down to
the local Hobby Lobby to buy some aircraft supplies. They are repleat
with stencils. And rub off lettering. And just about anything else
artsey fartsey you can think of. Back near the model plane
department there are stencils from tiny to huge. And in different
scripts, too. Of course I had to compliment the OD green primer by using block letters that are similar to what the army uses. I bought a set of 3 inch re-usable stencils for about $3. The set has two of the most common used letters. The stock is quite heavy, but regrettably the backs are not "sticky". Ah, who cares!
I used some packing tape to put the individual letter blocks together. Then it was just a matter of using the dental wrap to tape the N-number stencil block over the primer. Regrettably the dental wrap doesn't stick to the primer, but it does like the bare aluminum and the clear plastic vellum.
Rustoleum is icky stuff. Smells kinda nasty and sticks to anything (just about). What a mess. Nice thing is, though, that you can tease the trigger and kind of splat out the paint. In this case, that is a good thing because I didn't want to blow the stencil away from the surface of the empennage.
Mission
accomplished! The letters have just enough overspray to
look cheesey and cheap, fast, down and dirty. Just like a lot of
that military stuff early in WWII. I LIKE IT! Now, whether the
FAA likes it is another story. I think the specs say plain bold type.
Well, the lettering isn't TOO fuzzy, but there are breaks in the
letters (kinda stencil-like). Well, if "the man" doesn't like the
stenciled look, I have a BIG black marker, and I can fill in the
letters and numbers to look like solid blocks. No biggy. These are only
temporary anyway. After I fly the time off and the test phase is over,
I'll probably see about getting the plane professionally painted.
Or maybe not.Here's a link to my EVO line drawing.... it's a BMP file, over 600K.
I decided that I like OD a lot. So I thought I'd try a couple different accent colors:
Or:
Tough decision to make!
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