I have tested LeSving’s Norwegian paint (kindly supplied via airmail 
) against the Rustoleum one. They appear to be identical, with his possibly having a more solid coverage. It’s probably a similar formula.
Good to hear it arrived 
Actually your paint LeSving is the better of the two. It adheres better and is itself harder to scrape off.
I think a significant issue with aerosols is that the nozzle bungs up and then you get large droplets coming through. This is despite using the standard cleaning method (upside down until the nozzle “clears”). I think they expect you to use up the whole can on one job
Update: all these aerosol paints come off in the long run, when they get e.g. avgas on them. Nothing seems to beat 2-pack paints e.g. 2K.
This seems like a good thread for this one:
What is the best way to touch this up – short of respraying the whole plane?
My plan was to put a little spot of 2K primer on each rivet and then a little spot of a colour matched 2K paint. I do have some of the original French MAPAERO paint but that needs its own primer and doesn’t match anyway because the 15 year old aircraft paint has faded a bit, plus the French paint needs a clear UV lacquer on top.
But it will never look good.
Is there some “professional” solution? I see an increasing number of car body repairs done out of the back of a specialist trade van.
The door paint is rubbish (it came like that) and needs to be completely re-done, which is possible with a spraygun, having masked off a large area around it, and made sure the hangar is empty…
The rivets are sealed with PR1440 (they were wet-riveted) so should not need paint to stop water ingress.
Find yourself a good automotive sprayer. He will know the techniques to blend in the repair so that it is not noticeable.
They can also colour match your faded paintwork through the automotive paint distributors (Mitchells in Burgess Hill come to mind). The usual technique has already been mentioned, Alochrome, etch primer, base coat and then lacquer. Use automotive paints, they are the best and available in smaller quantities than industrial or MapAero. The repair area has etch primer, then base coat applied and then the whole panel is covered with a new coat of lacquer (this is standard practise on cars today). In this way you won’t be able to see the new area of paint/base coat and even though it might be a slightly different shade, the human eye cannot detect it.
These paints can also (sometimes) be applied ‘wet on wet’, so that once the base coat is applied the lacquer can go straight on top with out waiting for the base coat to dry. This gives a very good bond between the layers.
No other aircraft should be in the hangar whilst painting, as you have found out. The only way to stop overspray is to cover an aircraft in masking film or polymask. All upper surfaces must be covered and sealed with tape.
Many thanks for that Colin. I will contact one of the guys who do the mobile car touch-up work. Interesting bit about the clear lacquer over the whole panel; that explains how they make it blend in.
Probably best done outdoors on a nice summer day with no wind…
