There was a fantastic article about 1 year ago in one of the aviation
magazines that discussed how to repair plastic interior pieces,
including panel plastic. I think it was Sport Aviation. The before
and after results were quite impressive.

-Nathan



On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:21:03 GMT, "RKHenry"
wrote:

"Ben Smith" wrote in message
...
What do you guys use for painting interior plastic?

We will be out of annual for a couple weeks 'cause our A&P is busy, so
we're
going to work in the interior. We'll order various new pieces from Plane
Plastics. The parts come black right? We'll have to paint the new
pieces,
and re-paint the yellowed but reusable ones.

I just installed some seat backs from Plane Plastic in my Warrior. They're
white. Some of the other new parts I bought, like the air vent cups, are
black.

I decided to leave the cups and the flap lever cover black but for the white
seat backs I went to the automotive paint store and ordered paint that was a
close match to the upholstery. I applied it with a spray gun. The paint is
urethane so I'm hoping it will stand up well to handling and of course it's
as glossy as can be. In the past I've painted other interior parts with
enamel and the color eventually wore through.

Almost all these parts require a lot of work with a Dremel tool before
they're ready to install. And some of them aren't exactly like the
originals, but as long as they carry that PMA sticker and you can figure out
how to make them fit I guess they're ok.

You might want to replace the yellowed parts anyway, budget permitting. When
they get brittle like that they'll break easily. There isn't much point in
painting them if you'll only be having to replace them soon. One trick I've
used to repair these parts is to use ABS pipe cement (the clear kind) to
glue a layer of fiberglass cloth to the backside of the plastic. Helps hold
it together. That's only a temporary fix though, eventually the plastic goes
the way of all things created by the hand of man and you have to replace it.

RK Henry