Warbird Information Exchange

Tom: Best advice is stay as far away from shooting IMRON in any form as you can. It's highly toxic, drys slow and you have to shoot with a filtered, supplied air respirator system. On top of that and that it will cost you in the hundreds of dollars per gallon for the 2000 series and 5000 series bases, federal law precludes most people from being able to purchase it. The prohibition includes individuals, schools and votechs. There are much better paints out there for doing the job and are much more forgiving and safer for the average person. Read and heed the MSDS of what ever you end up using.


As to decals vs painting stars and bars and all the stencils, we've found that decals are nice for a couple of flights then they start having problems. They are finicky to put on and will build up dirt and grunge around the edges and eventually lift. The F-16 SPO had a single F-16 coated for color via decals in an experiment to try and cut down on repaint time and added weight. While it cut the weight down slightly, the time for application exceeded that for paint, and any surface damage to the decals required significant work to repair.

If you have all the formulas and layout information for the stars and bars, and have all the stencils precut, you should be able to mark out the entire plane in just a few days of dedicated work. The prep and layout is what takes the time to do correctly and look right and last a long time.

Tom: Best advice is stay as far away from shooting IMRON in any form as you can. It's highly toxic, drys slow and you have to shoot with a filtered, supplied air respirator system. On top of that and that it will cost you in the hundreds of dollars per gallon for the 2000 series and 5000 series bases, federal law precludes most people from being able to purchase it. The prohibition includes individuals, schools and votechs. There are much better paints out there for doing the job and are much more forgiving and safer for the average person. Read and heed the MSDS of what ever you end up using.

Guys: If you have never painted before, my suggestion would be go with a straight lacquer or enamel. They are much more forgiving of the spray environment and beginner's capabilities. They can also be repaired much easier than poly or epoxy paints. If you are set to do it, go down to the wrecking yard and buy a cheap car hood and practice on it. Prep it properly and then shoot it gloss white. White will show all your flaws quite well. Once you have it looking good, however many times it takes sanding it down and reshooting, then do it with gloss black. If you can make both of these look good at 5-10 feet, then you are ready to try the airplane.

As to color matching Tom, I'd pull one of the wheel pants and take it to your supplier and let them use their photo-spectrometer to match it in the paint chemistry you choose.

Good luck....I've been around restoring airplanes for more than 35 years and I won't shoot color, just primer and base coat that will be hidden....