Seattle Area got bad info, ruined foam on my new Turbo Timber

[jolfstn74]

Hello Forum! I've had a negative experience with a local merchant I'd like to share. I live about 30 miles NE of Seattle in a scenic suburb of the city called Bothell. Happily, I found a hobby shop 9 miles away in Redmond, and on my last visit, inquired about any type of spray paint that would not damage the cell structure of Styrofoam, and was directed to an expensive little can, branded "Tamiya Color" and admonished that the danger from spray paints as far as foam structure is concerned, has to do with the propellant in the can, not the paint itself. keep the can far enough away and paint lightly and you'll be fine. Previously, I ruined a set of wings on another plane so to confirm, this brand provided I am not right against it will NOT harm my new plane? "no, you'll be fine". Just to be sure, I used a primer to add a layer of protection and kept the can 18" away from the plane, got one coat on, walked away and when I returned to add more, saw the result in the photo I submit below. The damage isn't that severe, I think it can be saved. What I've decided to do is sand the wings down to fix the damage, then bleed all the gas out of the can of paint then remove the top with a Dremmel and dip it out with a brush, testing it on other foam first. I asked the clerk again and he told me a distance of 3' would be safe. Three Feet! sure it is safe for the foam. you won't get any propellant on there, nor will you get any PAINT EITHER! It's forgivable to not know something and to say so, maybe take it to the next step and tell your customer "I'll find out for you" but quite something else to not have information and volunteer incorrect information anyway. I don't see myself shopping there again. Back in the late 1980s I was involved in the model airplane flying community just north of NYC where I grew up, and it seems the consistency of quality has suffered. More people built their own planes then, mostly it was glow plug NITRO with the COX motors as the most common, one could buy a cox .049 nitro engine for around $30, the only electric motors at the time were on the big RC gliders, they were "Pods" pusher motors placed backwards over the wing running independent and without control for a couple minutes to propel the craft to altitude and then would glide back down, I saw a number of those and "slingshot" style launchers for gliders, several hundred feet of elastic rubber IV tubing. I'm thinking my next craft is going to be a glider. I've been having a devil of a time with my 2 planes over the last month, and I"m starting to become dis-enamored with the amount I am spending of cash and time with disappointing results.

 

[Hai-Lee]

Hello Forum! I've had a negative experience with a local merchant I'd like to share. I live about 30 miles NE of Seattle in a scenic suburb of the city called Bothell. Happily, I found a hobby shop 9 miles away in Redmond, and on my last visit, inquired about any type of spray paint that would not damage the cell structure of Styrofoam, and was directed to an expensive little can, branded "Tamiya Color" and admonished that the danger from spray paints as far as foam structure is concerned, has to do with the propellant in the can, not the paint itself. keep the can far enough away and paint lightly and you'll be fine. Previously, I ruined a set of wings on another plane so to confirm, this brand provided I am not right against it will NOT harm my new plane? "no, you'll be fine". Just to be sure, I used a primer to add a layer of protection and kept the can 18" away from the plane, got one coat on, walked away and when I returned to add more, saw the result in the photo I submit below. The damage isn't that severe, I think it can be saved. What I've decided to do is sand the wings down to fix the damage, then bleed all the gas out of the can of paint then remove the top with a Dremmel and dip it out with a brush, testing it on other foam first. I asked the clerk again and he told me a distance of 3' would be safe. Three Feet! sure it is safe for the foam. you won't get any propellant on there, nor will you get any PAINT EITHER! It's forgivable to not know something and to say so, maybe take it to the next step and tell your customer "I'll find out for you" but quite something else to not have information and volunteer incorrect information anyway. I don't see myself shopping there again. Back in the late 1980s I was involved in the model airplane flying community just north of NYC where I grew up, and it seems the consistency of quality has suffered. More people built their own planes then, mostly it was glow plug NITRO with the COX motors as the most common, one could buy a cox .049 nitro engine for around $30, the only electric motors at the time were on the big RC gliders, they were "Pods" pusher motors placed backwards over the wing running independent and without control for a couple minutes to propel the craft to altitude and then would glide back down, I saw a number of those and "slingshot" style launchers for gliders, several hundred feet of elastic rubber IV tubing. I'm thinking my next craft is going to be a glider. I've been having a devil of a time with my 2 planes over the last month, and I"m starting to become dis-enamored with the amount I am spending of cash and time with disappointing results.

I have done a number of repairs to retail foamies due to many damaging incidents. I use the cheapest rubbish paints withthe foam destroying solvents for all finishing BUT I give the entire plane a number of coats of a wipe on polyester varnish, (minwax), before applying the final colour coating.

I normally sand lightly between varnish coats as it helps smooth the finished result and apply the rubbish paints using very light coats from a metre of so away, allowing the paint to fully dry between coats. The final coat can be a "WET" coat if a gloss finish is required.

So far no faom damage has not ever occured but removing the colour is not really possible once applied, (without damage).

It does add a bit of extra weight but for most planes the weight increase is not significant!

 

[jolfstn74]

brilliant corpse! For the record, I'm having pretty good luck having bled all the gas out of the can and then cutting it open with a Dremel, then applying the paint with a brush. you will find it much much thinner than paint intended to be applied with the brush I'm using a foam brush and getting pretty good results. When cutting open the can, I used a ceramic blade so as not to spark because there is still some isobutane inside the Can & I don't want it to ignite. Initially, the paint mixture will be very cold which indicates continued presence of propellant and solvent I let that air for a few minutes as the paint comes to room temperature all of the foam dissolving properties should be gone. I'm painting my Turbo timber micro army green. I'll post results when I'm done unless they're terrible.

 

[jolfstn74]

Bleeding the gas out of the can, involve storing it upside down and letting it settle and then just holding the the button down are in releasing the gas into the cap trapping any paint that escapes and this gets very very cold because of the isobutane reaction with outside air, henceforth I'll simply do a base coat of minwax as per corpses suggestion

 

["Corpse"]

brilliant corpse! For the record, I'm having pretty good luck having bled all the gas out of the can and then cutting it open with a Dremel, then applying the paint with a brush. you will find it much much thinner than paint intended to be applied with the brush I'm using a foam brush and getting pretty good results. When cutting open the can, I used a ceramic blade so as not to spark because there is still some isobutane inside the Can & I don't want it to ignite. Initially, the paint mixture will be very cold which indicates continued presence of propellant and solvent I let that air for a few minutes as the paint comes to room temperature all of the foam dissolving properties should be gone. I'm painting my Turbo timber micro army green. I'll post results when I'm done unless they're terrible.

Heck, post em anyway! As long as it flies we love it!

 

[jolfstn74]

I have done a number of repairs to retail foamies due to many damaging incidents. I use the cheapest rubbish paints withthe foam destroying solvents for all finishing BUT I give the entire plane a number of coats of a wipe on polyester varnish, (minwax), before applying the final colour coating.

I normally sand lightly between varnish coats as it helps smooth the finished result and apply the rubbish paints using very light coats from a metre of so away, allowing the paint to fully dry between coats. The final coat can be a "WET" coat if a gloss finish is required.

So far no faom damage has not ever occured but removing the colour is not really possible once applied, (without damage).

It does add a bit of extra weight but for most planes the weight increase is not significant!

spraying from metere away does not prevent the paint from reaching the target?

 

["Corpse"]

Bleeding the gas out of the can, involve storing it upside down and letting it settle and then just holding the the button down are in releasing the gas into the cap trapping any paint that escapes and this gets very very cold because of the isobutane reaction with outside air, henceforth I'll simply do a base coat of minwax as per corpses suggestion

What is this suggestion you speak of?

 

[Hai-Lee]

spraying from metere away does not prevent the paint from reaching the target?

No! If you slow down the your moving the can from side to side to suit the coverage you require.

You will need to mask up the areas not to be painted of courseand the varnish prevents the tape from sticking strongly to the foam and ripping out crumbs. Mind you the distance you use does not need to be exact just ensure that you get a light dry coat for the first few coats!

 

[jolfstn74]

You know I wouldn't feel so compelled to paint these planes if they didn't look so much like toys. this is the Turbo timber micro my second one the first one the sport cub SI painted black and this one I tried to do army green but ran out of paint so it's a very dark green wich looks better than the original army green that I had that was sort of puke green, forgive the ee cummings stream of consciousness I'm doing speech to text

 

[jolfstn74]

The Suggestion came from Hai Lee, my apologies to both corpse and Hai Lee for the mistakening from whom I got the info. I've painted my plane, began to run out of paint that had originated from the spray can, was going for "army green" but the color was more puke green, so I added a bit of red, yellow and black and then did lots of black trim on the forest or pine green I wound up with. Nerve damage in my hands makes for shaky results, but here's what I got: as compare to as purchased

 

[Tench745]

I like good-ol water-based polyurethane (WBPU) for a base coat on bare foam. Don't use it on anything with paper because the water-base will warp the paper, but it's fine on foam like your Turbo Timber. Two coats should seal it well enough to spray anything you want on it, and it has the added benefit of smoothing out some of the little pin-hole imperfections in the surface.

(Edit) Oh yeah, and the guy wasn't wrong. The solvent is the danger. Spraying light coats from very far away will give the solvent time to flash off before it hits the foam. A good priming with something benign like polyester varnish or WBPU is still recommended to reduce the risk from getting to close with the spray can.