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Weight of paint

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rv4bill

Well Known Member
I keep hearing how much paint adds to the weight of a plane. I understand that you may have to purchase 45-55 pounds of paint to complete your project. My question is.... If you were to somehow remove all of the dried paint and clear that was applied and put it all in a bucket, is it really gonna weigh 45-55 lbs? Has anyone weighed there plane , with everything being equal, after the paint job?
 
Yeah maybe 20 or a little more for smaller than a rv10. Single stage is almost half the weight but what's 10 more lbs if its super shiny.
 
My RV-6 was painted with Jet-Glo almost 20 years ago. The 2-color paint scheme added 18 lbs. Still looks like new.

Many people currently use more paint than necessary and can add up to 30 lbs.
A "Poplawski" paint job on a 2-seat RV typically adds 18-25 lbs.
 
Depending on your spraygun, you're probably only putting about 2/3 on the surface. Of that, a whole lot is solvent that's going to evaporate off. I sat down once and did a very crude estimate of the surface area of an RV and mutliplied by a thickness of .005. The total volume of paint film came out to 1.8 gallons.
 
I bought my plane unpainted and the w&b from the builder stated it was 1081 empty. I had it reweighed after a professional paint job (single stage) and the new weight is 1156. Discrepancy in scales? I don't know, but I clearly don't like the result...
 
FlyArmy said:
I bought my plane unpainted and the w&b from the builder stated it was 1081 empty. I had it reweighed after a professional paint job (single stage) and the new weight is 1156. Discrepancy in scales? I don't know, but I clearly don't like the result...
Click to expand...

Sounds like either the original scales were wrong, the latter scales were wrong, or the aircraft may have been involved in other mods somewhere in between.
 
Modern HVLP paint guns advertise a 75% transfer rate, that is 25% goes out the exhaust fan, of the 75% that ends up on the plane, 30% or so are solvents that evaporate. Figure average weight of a gallon of paint/ primers are a little heavier, to be 8 to 10 lbs. you will probably use no more than 4 gallons of product. You do the math, I would estimate a good paint job should add no more than 20lbs, more like 15lbs.
Dick
 
Guess all you want......... but weigh just before and just after it's painted for the true weight of the paint. All else is hear say.
 
RV-6A paint weight

rv4bill said:
I keep hearing how much paint adds to the weight of a plane. I understand that you may have to purchase 45-55 pounds of paint to complete your project. My question is.... If you were to somehow remove all of the dried paint and clear that was applied and put it all in a bucket, is it really gonna weigh 45-55 lbs? Has anyone weighed there plane , with everything being equal, after the paint job?
Click to expand...

It really does depend on color/# of coats (from discussions with my painter, some colors require more coats thus more weight), and application can make a difference too. I weighed my -6A immediately before and after painting at T&P in Salinas, CA. Red on white with single black trim stripe and clear coat on the red and black areas = 16 lbs.

Pictures from paint process and final product shown at:

http://rv6aproject.ckhand.com/PaintJob/PaintJobPg1.htm
 
RV8 paint

We weighed it just before and just after and it added just under 30 lbs. (28 I think)

base, clear, 3 color. And no, its not full of bondo.
 
I have a 4 color custom paint job with extensive airbrushing and 4 coats of clear. Paint is PPG base/clear. The paint job added 21 pounds, a whole lot of ramp appeal, and 2 kts. I think a lot of the variability in paint job weights stems from how much fiberglass work was done and how much filler was left on the plane.

Jerry Esquenazi
RV-8 N84JE
Flying since 2007, 700+ hours
 
Weighed before and after, same scales, 30 pounds-of really cool paint

jet glo by GLO Custom
 
RV-6 weighted with calibrated scales before and then again months after painting. There was 18-months between times.

Weight gain, eight (8) pounds. Way less than what everyone else is reporting.

DuPont Chroma One Acrylic Urethane is what was used on top of DuPont Veriprime primer.
 
easy equation

Hey Fellas:

Let's say a particular gallon of paint is 60% solids. To make the math easy, this gallon weighs 10lbs/gal. When dry, it will weigh 6 lbs, or 60% of it's original 10lbs. Maybe DanH will want to step in here, but that how it was explained to me by a fella who paints corporate stuff for a living. He sez a typical KingAir paint job weighs about 30lbs.

If I am correct, the weight of the paint job simply depends on how many gallons actually get to stay on the plane. If you are as accomplished as I am at applying the orange peel finish, you will sand most of it off anyway...

Carry on!
Mark
 
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