Remember that priming booth I mentioned a couple weeks ago? Yeah that ended up being more of a priming tarp thrown on the ground and some plastic taped to the wall. Not the best booth, but with this COVID-19 crap going on right now I got impatient and made due with what I had. With Kristyn out for the day doing a “social distance parking lot get together” with a couple of friends, I decided it was the perfect time to spray some primer.
Apparently there is a bunch of debate about primer. So much so that VAF has an entire section of the forum dedicated to “Primer Wars”. The debate rages about whether it’s worth it to prime, what primer to use, how to prep the aluminum for priming… the list goes on. Who knew people could be so passionate about a little paint. While I have no interest in entering the debate and sacrificing myself to the primer gods, I’ve decided I’m going to prime the internals of the plane. Priming adds an extra layer of protection against corrosion that will hopefully make this a plane I can pass down to my son.
The next question was – what primer to use. There are quite a few options ranging from super toxic two part epoxy to Rustoleum rattle cans. The two part epoxy systems are by far the best, but the toxicity and cost turned me off to those. They’re also harder to find. On the other hand, while super convenient and cheap, Rustoleum rattle cans just don’t have the performance I’m looking for. In the end I decided to go with SEM self etching primer. It’s ready to spray, relatively inexpensive, and best of all I can order it from Amazon. I feel like it’s a good balance between cost, complexity, and quality.
For the paint booth, I built a small frame out of 2×4 boards and chicken wire. The chicken wire allows excess air and paint to flow through without blowing the smaller parts around like can happen if I just used a sheet of plywood. I set the frame up on some sawhorses on a painters drop cloth and taped plastic to protect the walls of the garage. It worked ok, but there are definitely some things I would change about my “booth”. To spray I’m using the Harbor Freight “purple” HVLP spray gun. They provide a decent finish and for under $10 when on sale, you can beat them.
SEM Primer 
The “Purple Gun” 
My “Paint Booth”
Take Aways
- I really need some PPE. COVID-19 has things like painters respirators virtually impossible to find, but I need to figure something out because a crappy dust mask just doesn’t cut it.
- Ventilation is super important. I’ve seen several different priming setups on VAF and I need to do some more research because right now the garage smells like crap.
- Learned a new trick for pouring paint from a gallon can. Of course I didn’t pay close enough attention the first time and had to pour paint all over the floor first, but in the end it’s super useful. You can see an example at 7:40 of the video.