A Bad Paint Job Can Ruin The Best Work

[johnmdesigner]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...lf-2021-11-29/

I had no idea the paint layer was this thick on these airplanes. Christ, it must weigh a ton.
And how the hell do they apply it? Looks like a powder coat job gone bad.

[Mabouya]

And how the hell do they apply it?

[j44ke]

bad drywall joint compound

[htwoopup]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...lf-2021-11-29/

it must weigh a ton.

I vaguely remember either American or United when they redesigned their livery (colorway in plane branding speak), the CEO made a point of saying that they were going to only have predominately metal with only a little paint because it was going to save a gazillion gallons of jet fuel a year...of course his interest wasn't in the carbon footprint/ fossil fuel use but was telling stockholders it was going to save them the gross national product of a small nation every year.

[ides1056]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...lf-2021-11-29/

I had no idea the paint layer was this thick on these airplanes. Christ, it must weigh a ton.
And how the hell do they apply it? Looks like a powder coat job gone bad.

Wire lath? Seriously?

[AngryScientist]

CC to "irrational fear of flying" thread.

[Scott G.]

Wire lath? Seriously?

A-350 has a carbon fiber fuselage, needs a layer of metal mesh to provide lightning protection.

https://weatherguardaero.com/composi...ion-solutions/

[rwsaunders]

That’s one helluva paint booth…

[Diablo de Acero]

I would say that bad prep work ruins any paint job.

[Mabouya]

I would say that bad prep work ruins any paint job.

Notice that the video doesn't show you all the time spent taping and masking - boring, but critical.

[spopepro]

This is only on topic as far as it’s about airplanes and paint.

My uncle served in the MN air guard and they have a better than average static collection. Part of the reason is that Jim Goodall was in the unit. Beyond being an airman, Jim *loves* planes and was one of the folks who would camp out on the peaks outside groom lake to try and get info on what was flying out there (the government would eventually buy those peaks and expand the facility perimeter.

Anyway when the SR-71 program was officially declassified Jim being an expert on the plane set about acquiring one for the MN museum. Eventually they were able to get their hands on an A-12. It had to be cut into three long pieces to fit in the cargo plane and then put back together at the base. Along with it they sent a few hundred gallons of the radar absorbing paint. Now, that paint has to be redone like twice a year, and there’s no way they were going to do that. So they put a longer lasting flat black on it. The funny part was Jim and the group trying to now figure out what to do with a few hundred gallons of really expensive radar absorbing paint…

[Mark Kelly]

A-350 has a carbon fiber fuselage, needs a layer of metal mesh to provide lightning protection.

https://weatherguardaero.com/composi...ion-solutions/

Which might be apposite: assuming the metal mesh is aluminium it will expand by about 60mm over the length of the plane in a 40 ^oC temperature swing while the carbon will not*. The difference might be enough to cause them to separate when the planes are exposed to extreme conditions as in, ferinstance, Qatar.

* Carbon fibre itself has a negative Cte, that of the composite will depend on the matrix and fibre orientation etc.

[j44ke]

Which might be apposite: assuming the metal mesh is aluminium it will expand by about 60mm over the length of the plane in a 40 ^oC temperature swing while the carbon will not*. The difference might be enough to cause them to separate when the planes are exposed to extreme conditions as in, ferinstance, Qatar.

* Carbon fibre itself has a negative Cte, that of the composite will depend on the matrix and fibre orientation etc.

I think the article says the mesh is copper.

[72gmc]

I had the opportunity to work on a plane livery project several years ago. It was very interesting to learn about the effects of weights and colors. I didn’t get to see the paint applied, unfortunately.

[bigbill]

Not an airplane but kind of interesting. In 2012 we were part of a naval exercise out of Pearl Harbor. The Russians sent one of their cold-war vintage guided missile cruisers. It was moored at Pearl. If you got close enough, you could see the deep "texture" of the paint where coat after coat had been applied over rust. I walked around on the ship and passing through a hatch, I put my hand up against a bulkhead and I could feel paint crumbling. I think the ship was literally held together with some sweet Soviet era lead paint.

We had a cool photo of our combined multinational task force with the US carrier as the centerpiece. We could only go 5 knots so the Russians could stay in formation.

[72gmc]

Do you ever stop repainting a Navy vessel? I’ve been under the impression that it’s constant.

[bigbill]

Do you ever stop repainting a Navy vessel? I’ve been under the impression that it’s constant.

On nuclear ships it's: one coat for dust, two coats for rust, and three coats for contamination.

Navy ships have a process for painting and the first step is to prep the surface by removing the existing paint with a needle gun. I learned to sleep through the needle gun cacophony as easily as I got used to living under catapult one on my 2000 deployment on the IKE. Woodpeckers make me sleepy.

[Mark Kelly]

I think the article says the mesh is copper.

In which case the expansion would be a little less, 50mm for 40 ^oC.