Paint stripping.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

I'm considering stripping the paint off my plane.

What stripper have you guys used.

I'm concerned about corrosion between the skins afterwards and also collecting and disposing of the removed material.

[doug8082a]

What are your plans after stripping your plane? Paint? Paint yourself? Polish?

[N2865C]

I have used Citristrip with on small areas good results. It is available at many hardware stores. Perfect polish has some good info on paint stripping.
http://www.perfectpolish.com/paint_stripper.htm

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

What are your plans after stripping your plane? Paint? Paint yourself? Polish?

Yep right Doug, I'm going to polish it up like a mirror.

No it will definitely, probably will get repainted in a VERY utilitarian paint scheme I have in mind that matches my personality of not really caring about the cosmetics of most machines I own.

I'm looking over some of the photos posted lately like the ones of N419A with the tire size comparison and I just love that bare aluminum (not polished) cowl.

Really I'm not kidding. If all the paint feel off my plane tomorrow I wouldn't be happier.

[170C]

Bruce, I bet some of the local shops in your area can give you some options for strippers (paint that is ), but boy are you a glutton for punishment if you are going to do it yourself I hope you plan to take the wings off to do it so you don't have to try to strip paint overhead. Let us know what you decide to use and how the project is going. Is this going to be a contender for People's Choice in Galveston

[Indopilot]

Bruce, Alot of the success/failure depends on matching your stripper to your paint. If you have Alumigrip paint to take off and you use the wrong stripper, you and your wife and family will need counseling.
If you can determine which paint you have from the logbooks. I would suggest contacting the manufacturer of that paint for their reccomendation. When I worked in a paint shop in Tucson we had 5 barrels of different strippers to try till one worked.
As far as clean up, if you lay out a roll of heavy plastic, roll N9149A on to it and then use 2x4 or conduit around the edges to make a berm. That will catch most of it. When you are done and the water is drained off into buckets or evaporated roll the pastic up and dispose of it.
A word of caution on masking your windows. We always masked with paper and 3M masking tape up to within approx. 1-1.5 inches from the metal to protect the plastic. That was covered with 2-3 layers aluminum foil and foil tape each slightly wider than the previous layer. Finally a line of aluminum tape was laid bridging between the edge of the last layer and overlapping1/8-1/4 inch onto the aluminum window frame. This last is very important to keep any stripper or stripper fumes from contacting the plexiglass. After the stripping you will need to sand the paintline around the window edge.
The nice thing about all this initial work is after stripping you peel one layer off and throw it awayand then you are ready to etch and alodine with only one strip of fine line tape to add to your still covered window masking edge. Pull that off and remask that one small strip and you are ready to prime. Replace that one strip of tape again and you are ready to paint with no primer showing when you pull the total masking off at the end of your paint job. AND no ugly stripper spots on your windows. Anyway that is one way to do it. Brian

[Indopilot]

Opps forgot to mention you will want access to a high pressure sprayer to flush out the seams. With hot water would be better. Brian

[johneeb]

Bruce,
Take a look at these guys WEB site, I bought stripper form them when I did my plane. They helped pick the right stripper and it worked very well.

http://www.eldoradochem.com/paintstripping.htm

[jon s blocker]

Bruce, I have done several planes and found that stripper from Eldorado worked excellent. Determine your type of paint and contact them. Figure on at least 5 gallons. I envy you to get to have a utilitarian paint job. I have always liked the "working mans paint scheme". That being said My plane has WAY too much paint on it. Keep it light and keep it washed. Once you have stripped it and blasted out the seams, get a good preservative like corrosion X, or the like, and apply it with pressure from the inside out. If it isn't running through the seams you haven't used enough. You lucky guy, (after the fun of stripping the paint that is) . Jon

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

This is all great information for anyone thinking of stripping paint. Glad I thought to start the subject.

Like I said I don't have a timeline to do this just that I want to do it. I'm kind of thinking I might have time hear and there and I'd just have the product and equipment needed hanging around for when I have the time to do a little. Pretty soon it would be done.


If I where to strip the paint and leave it bare for say 5 or 10 years till its got that really nice cool dull trash can aluminum look,8) while I be doing the skins any harm for the next care taker who may want to paint it? keep in mid now it will not be polished.

Frank, I doubt if I'll have it done by Galveston. In fact I might not even get it started by then.

I'll tell you one thing though. If and when I do get it done the way I'd like I'll bet people might vote for it for Peoples Choice, And I definitely WON"T be standing around wiping hand prints off like a recent winner we all know.

[Indopilot]

Like Jon says Corrossion X or the like is a good idea. And also like he says it will be running out of all the seams so do it after the paint or do it 3-5 years BEFORE you want to paint. Of course if you touch up the existing paint like we did temporarily, then you are good to go for 18 years like we did. Nothing so permenant as a "temporary" fix

[bradbrady]

Bruce,
Good luck peice mealing your strip job! I wouldn't do it!
brad

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Bruce,
Good luck peice mealing your strip job! I wouldn't do it!
brad

OK Brad why not? Because of the clean up in between each session? Or you don't want to get caught in a half stripped plane?

[bradbrady]

Bruce,
Good luck peice mealing your strip job! I wouldn't do it!
brad

OK Brad why not? Because of the clean up in between each session? Or you don't want to get caught in a half stripped plane?

Bruce,
The half stripped/painted A/C is your disision. for ALL the reasons above, is why I wouldn't peice meal a strip job! There are so many introcics(sp) to doing a good strip job that boil over to the paint job,that there isn't enough space on this websight to cover them all!
brad

[GAHorn]

... it will definitely, probably will get repainted in a ... paint scheme I have in mind that matches my personality ...

OLIVE DRAB ....