Today I was able to get away for a few minutes to finish prepping the seat frames for paint and apply a coat of epoxy primer. Today was one of the first days that we’ve had lately with a warm enough temperature.
Chinese Spray Gun
This was my first time to use the little Chinese paint gun that I picked up a while back. I didn’t know how it was going to work, so I did some practice painting with some alcohol that I had on hand- simply because it was cheap and not water.
Headrest frames ready to prime
Colorful Polyfiber cans and colorful paint gun box
It was good to get a feel for how each of the different knobs changed the spray charactaristics. Since I was painting tubes, I adjusted the fan pattern to the narrowest setting.
Practicing with the paint gun- note the intentional run on the upper left.
I followed the directions on the can for mixing the polyfiber primer and poured it into the cup. For practice I painted a section of the side of the clubhouse. I wanted to see how much spray it would take to make the paint run, so you can see a couple of nasty spots. Feeling well prepared enough, I started spraying the seats. The most difficult but yet most important thing to remember was to keep the gun far enough away from the work- about a foot or so. When I started to get distracted I would find myself holding the gun way too close and getting too much paint on.
Here's the back seat frame after priming and headset modifications.
Bearhawk front seat backs after priming
Here are the Headset Frames after priming
While I had the primer out, I also primed the elevator trim pushrods.
In the end I was quite satisfied with the finished product. Using the spray gun was easier than using a rattle can, mostly because of the “air only” trigger setting. I could keep the air flowing all the time, and then just spray the paint when necessary.
I cleaned the gun with some reducer, and then left to go to work.