Purchased a set of Ken Wilson's beautiful stencils for the cowling data block and fuel placards for the L-4.
The aircraft was covered and finished over five years ago now in the Polyfibre system, including Polytone paint. The question was how to sucessfully apply the new stencils in Polytone over the older paint.
I called Polyfiber and spoke to their resident expert, Hualdo. He told me that the paint first had to be cleaned using Polyfiber paint cleaning solvent, C-2210, according to label instructions. Then, the paint had to be roughed up using a fine grade of sandpaper.
After some experimentation, I decided to use the finest grade of furniture refinishing steel wool that I could find (super-fine 0000, "quad aught") in place of the sandpaper. The hope was to still micro abrade the old paint, providing a surface to which the new paint would easiy adhere, without damage to the underlying paint.
Prepping the areas with steel wool appears to have worked. After several weeks, the markings appear permanant, as they would have been if applied over fresh paint. This remains true even after a bath in fuel and some post flight wipe downs. There's no evidence of the necessary paint surface preparation.
The pics below were taken immediately after stencil application. After drying, the Polytone insignia blue paint darkens significantly and appears almost black today.
The aircraft was covered and finished over five years ago now in the Polyfibre system, including Polytone paint. The question was how to sucessfully apply the new stencils in Polytone over the older paint.
I called Polyfiber and spoke to their resident expert, Hualdo. He told me that the paint first had to be cleaned using Polyfiber paint cleaning solvent, C-2210, according to label instructions. Then, the paint had to be roughed up using a fine grade of sandpaper.
After some experimentation, I decided to use the finest grade of furniture refinishing steel wool that I could find (super-fine 0000, "quad aught") in place of the sandpaper. The hope was to still micro abrade the old paint, providing a surface to which the new paint would easiy adhere, without damage to the underlying paint.
Prepping the areas with steel wool appears to have worked. After several weeks, the markings appear permanant, as they would have been if applied over fresh paint. This remains true even after a bath in fuel and some post flight wipe downs. There's no evidence of the necessary paint surface preparation.
The pics below were taken immediately after stencil application. After drying, the Polytone insignia blue paint darkens significantly and appears almost black today.
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