I ordered a Quick Silver fabric tester and have used it to test my 20 year old Polyfiber fabric on my Mini-Max and it goes thru at about 8 pounds pressure so I figure it is time to recover.I used the Polyfiber right up through the finishing with Polytone. It was kind of expensive and had a lot of toxic chemicals involved. But I was pleased with the results. I am thinking about using the Sherwin- Williams process this time around. Any comments concerning the use of house paint would be appreciated, both plus or minus. The house paint would be soooo much less expensive and less toxic. I think that we have discussed this before but let use go around on it one more time. Thanks.
I'm not an expert on it but from a lot of things I have been sent to read.. quality house paint is just fine! My plane has it and the fabric is quite old, but passed the quicksilver test easily. Except when I slipped on the tool and it went in at an angle, ha..
My MiniMAX was completed only 4 or so years ago, so I can't speak to the longevity of using latex house paint. However, I am too cheap to paint a $5000 airplane with "expensive" airplane paint. I painted latex in the basement of my house and never had any complaints from my bride. I never intended to make my MiniMAX a show plane, so didn't even use gloss paint, just semi-gloss. It's kept in a closed hangar so it's exposed to very little UV.
One thing I would say is that water based house paint is not a generic thing. I wouldn't just buy some and use it. I'd either conduct some long term tests of several brands on some test panels, which doesn't seem like something very many people will have done, or I'd stick pretty close to whatever brand has been used by David Cooper over the long term. I do know that there have been some disasters with paints which just didn't work well on fabric, even though they may have been acceptable on houses. But those folks aren't exactly coming forward to talk about that.
Also I've had the experience of having people brag about how great the water based house paint was and then later seen their paint jobs and felt it was far below any minimum standard I would have.
A final comment: When I add up the dollars it will cost to use the complete Poly-Fiber process on any particular aircraft and then run it through the Contract Pricing System we developed to allow us to do all sorts of repair, construction, and painting using any reasonable value for my time the percentage of total cost attributable to the more expensive materials is pretty low. I think I'd bite the bullet and use the Poly-Fiber or some other established covering system. As paints go the Poly-Tone paint for fabric and all the supporting materials are really not very expensive. Further if you ever have to sell your aircraft saying you've got the complete Poly-Fiber system on it will probably get you a few more dollars.
Of course the REAL high end as far as material's costs go is the Oratex. However it is worth mentioning that I once calculated that on the average MiniMax Oratex would save about 21 pounds, which is nothing to sneeze at. I'm tempted to use it on my Epic Sport once we get the complete plans. So you COULD say the Poly-Fiber was a good compromise between the house paint and Oratex. If you just needed a rationale to keep using the Poly-Fiber.
Thank you Tom and Radfordc . I have communicated with David on the on the matter and also there is a very good webinar put out by EAA and a fellow who has worked with the Latex based paint on several airplanes. I think that the system has proven its self many times with long term testing. I have all so considered Oratex and having the previous layer of Polytak on the airplane proofs a problem as it needs to be completely removed so that the areas of bonding with Oratex are not contaminated. This is a great option for new construct but not so much with reconstruction.The removal of Polytak cement might be a very time consuming endeavor. The Fly Baby site has a very good description and history of the use of Latex paint.I have purchased the covering from David Cooper at Team Mini-Max and it should be arriving next week. The system that I am considering using is a priming coat of Gliden or PPG Gripper followed by Sherwood Williams high gloss white. Thanks all for your input.
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