Painting with Latex House Paint

One of our Fly Baby restorers is painting his aircraft with latex house paint.
He's been posting his progress to the Fly Baby mailing list, and is allowing me
to repost his messages to my web page:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/tech/latex.html

Ron Wanttaja

In article ,
Ron Wanttaja wrote:

One of our Fly Baby restorers is painting his aircraft with latex house
paint.
He's been posting his progress to the Fly Baby mailing list, and is allowing
me
to repost his messages to my web page:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/tech/latex.html

Ron Wanttaja

I would not expect it to have very good UV protection without using lots
of silver! I have never tried to work with latex on even test samples of
fabric. It should be interesting to see how it turns our.


Isn't latex the basis for the Green River (?) process?

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news

I would not expect it to have very good UV protection without using lots
of silver! I have never tried to work with latex on even test samples of
fabric. It should be interesting to see how it turns our.

Orval.........

My first Emeraude was finished with latex and the cover job was twenty years
old. (Hangared, of course.)

The UV protection comes not from silver but from a coat of black latex under
the color coat. The black undercoat may be sanded to smooth and fill the
edges of the tapes and seams just like silver. You just have to make sure
that the last coat of black completely protects the fabric and is not sanded
through anywhere.

Rich S.

Rich S. wrote:
...
The UV protection comes not from silver but from a coat of black latex under
the color coat. ...


This is an oft repeated canard. For some strange reason, folks simply
assume that since black paint blocks visible light, it must also block
UV light. By that logic, it would be legitimate to assume that black
paoint blocks every other wavelength in the spectrum: xrays, infrared,
radio waves, gamma rays, etc.

Ok, so if we quit making groundless assumptions, what've we got? Mmmm,
how about scientific analysis?

A Pietenpol builder by the name of Kirk Huizenga did a series of
spectrometry tests on several colors of latex. Turns out that there's
nothing special about black, nothing at all. Paint it with whatever
color you want, they all protect from UV equally well. His report, the
transformed data and the analysis are available (pdf & xls files):

http://www.mykitplane.com/Planes/fil....cfm?AlbumID=5

Daniel

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 16:36:02 -0800, "Rich S."
wrote:

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news

I would not expect it to have very good UV protection without using lots
of silver! I have never tried to work with latex on even test samples of
fabric. It should be interesting to see how it turns our.

Orval.........

My first Emeraude was finished with latex and the cover job was twenty years
old. (Hangared, of course.)

The UV protection comes not from silver but from a coat of black latex under
the color coat. The black undercoat may be sanded to smooth and fill the
edges of the tapes and seams just like silver. You just have to make sure
that the last coat of black completely protects the fabric and is not sanded
through anywhere.

Rich S.

Titanium Dioxide (white pigment) is also effective for UV blocking.
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wrote in message
ups.com...


A Pietenpol builder by the name of Kirk Huizenga did a series of
spectrometry tests on several colors of latex. Turns out that there's
nothing special about black, nothing at all. Paint it with whatever
color you want, they all protect from UV equally well. His report, the
transformed data and the analysis are available (pdf & xls files):

http://www.mykitplane.com/Planes/fil....cfm?AlbumID=5

It would seem that you are correct. I should have been more specific, as I
was offering a single case study as an example. Emeraude N29GL was finished
using a black latex undercoat and blue & white color coats. After 20 years,
the fabric was still in good condition although the workmanship on the
finish was extremely rough. I'm not sure if the builder even cleaned his
broom before using it to apply the paint. )

Rich S.

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 11:40:43 -0800, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

One of our Fly Baby restorers is painting his aircraft with latex house paint.
He's been posting his progress to the Fly Baby mailing list, and is allowing me
to repost his messages to my web page:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/tech/latex.html

Guaranteed to turn anything white that touches it after a year of two
outside. House paint is supposed to be self cleaning, or at least it
was.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
Ron Wanttaja

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:57:07 -0500, "Morgans" wrote:


"Roger" wrote

Guaranteed to turn anything white that touches it after a year of two
outside. House paint is supposed to be self cleaning, or at least it
was.

How the latex will perform in the chalking regard, I am unsure of. Of one
thing I am sure of, Latex paint has changed much, in the past few years.

Paint manufacturers are being "encouraged" to get more and more away from
oil paints, with all of their volatile substances, so they have improved
latex's quality and durability, greatly. It will be interesting to see how
they hold up on planes in the long term.

Drew Fidoe, the guy using latex paint on his Fly Baby, started a test with paint
samples left outdoors about 4-5 years ago. Nothing he saw from those
discouraged him so far.

A while back, a local homebuilder was laughed at because he covered his
elevators with nurse's uniform fabric from the local sewing-goods store. After
45 years without having to recover them, no one's laughing any more.

Ron Wanttaja

"Roger" wrote

Guaranteed to turn anything white that touches it after a year of two
outside. House paint is supposed to be self cleaning, or at least it
was.

How the latex will perform in the chalking regard, I am unsure of. Of one
thing I am sure of, Latex paint has changed much, in the past few years.

Paint manufacturers are being "encouraged" to get more and more away from
oil paints, with all of their volatile substances, so they have improved
latex's quality and durability, greatly. It will be interesting to see how
they hold up on planes in the long term.

I seem to recall that new car auto makers are now beginning to use paints
almost totally lacking in volatile.
--
Jim in NC

"Roger" wrote in message
...
Guaranteed to turn anything white that touches it after a year of two
outside. House paint is supposed to be self cleaning, or at least it
was.

Y'know Roger, that made me remember. While the Emeraude I mentioned was
prepped with latex, the color coats were Dupont Dulux car enamel. A mind is
a terrible thing to lose.

Rich S.