Painting your foamy?

[Carbon]

Well, simple question: How do you guys paint/decorate/color your scratch builds?
Show some pics!

~Carbon

 

[earthsciteach]

The guy who runs the RC club at school with me (art teacher) just got a new Sky Surfer kit. He's airbrushing it using automotive paint. It looks AWESOME! Wish I had talent like that.

 

[Revj Vegas]

I have zero painting/airbrushing skills, so I use colored packing tape.

 

[Carbon]

can you spraypaint foam?

 

[earthsciteach]

With the right spray paint - yes. But, you can't use any spray paint. I know Testors spray paint is safe. But its expensive. I've heard Krylon Fusion is safe, but have never verified. Its the 'tones in the spray paint that eat the foam. Acetone, Keytone, whatevertone...

Airbrushing doesn't use any of these, so it is perfectly safe.

 

[Fentonflyers]

Airbrushing doesn't use any of these, so it is perfectly safe.

Airbrushing typically requires the viscosity of the paint to be lowered considerably so that it can be atomized. Depending on the types of product to be sprayed it is very likely that one of the "tones" might be used. I think it might be safer to say that airbrushing water born products would be safe. Sorry to butt in. I would just hate to see someone destroy their plane.
Jay

 

[Tritium]

With the right spray paint - yes. But, you can't use any spray paint. I know Testors spray paint is safe. But its expensive. I've heard Krylon Fusion is safe, but have never verified. Its the 'tones in the spray paint that eat the foam. Acetone, Keytone, whatevertone...

Airbrushing doesn't use any of these, so it is perfectly safe.

Krylon Fusion Eats DOW Blue Fan-fold foam for lunch unless it is first coated with a healthy dose of Minwax Polycrylic (then almost any paint will work). The new Krylon H20 will work great but it is hard to find everywhere. Testors is TOO high for too SMALL cans, but it does work.

ALWAYS TEST on SCRAP foam FIRST or keep a hanky handy to wipe away the tears when your plane melts away!

Thurmond

 

[Dagger_117]

Craft paint from Wal-Mart works great, or any other acrylic paint...its cheap. I use polycrylic to seal the foam then paint it. After its completely dry I give it another coat of Poly. This strengthens the foam and protects the paint from moisture when flying on wet fields. It does add weight...about 20g (30" wing span) depending on the size of the plane. You can add any details with a sharpie permanent marker. This Su-37 was painted with craft paint and pilot and stars were printed out on a color laser printer then stuck to the plane with Elmer's contact cement, or 3M 77 spray.

 

[colorex]

Gerat tips, now if I can only find polycrylic... I'll try to spraypaint my Bixler's canopy though. Several light layers shouldn't hurt the foam, as long as I let them dry individually.

 

[Bollie]

My wife does a bit of art so I've just being using up some of her old paits, but I went into Bunnings - A hardware chain in Australia and found that they now stock a water based spray paint for around $7 a can. It works a treat, I tested it on my AXN and had no problems

 

[Rcplaneguy]

If anyone is painting Z-Foam I would recommend testers or rustoleum spray paint...