Latex Painting Session Pictures

Let me first show you how I mix the latex paint for spraying with my HVLP gun.

Here you see the small scale I use to weigh out 1 oz of distilled water and the Floetrol paint conditioner I add to the mix.

Again I weigh out 1 oz of distilled water in a small cup.

I then spoon out 10 spoonfuls of paint into a 9 oz clear plastic cup.

After that add the water and stir until it is fully mixed.

Next pour out 1 spoonful of Floetrol paint conditioner. Here you can add a little more then 1 spoonful as it will only make the Latex settle out better. But so far 1 spoonful has been good enough for me. Be sure to stir the mix well to make sure the Floetrol is completely mixed in. Then you can pour you paint into your paint gun.

This is the HVLP gun that I'm using. You can get this from Harbor Freight - Gun link - for about $50 dollars. So far I've been happy with it. Although my buddy Chuck was nice enough to let me have this one since he had a few other nicer guns and was not using this one. Thank you Chuck!

Next I will show you a few pictures of some parts I shot. Keep in mind that the color Yellow takes a few more coats then other colors to get the desired amount of coverage and color. I've been told that shooting some Silver down as a base coat before Yellow helps this problem but I have not tried that yet. Below you will see the back hatch of my Super Reaper turbine jet. This was taken after I shot the first coat.

This was after the second coat.

And this was the final result after about 5 coats.

When I shot my hatch the first time I actually forgot to add the spoonful of Floetrol to my mix. So I ended up the next day removing the latex paint that I had sprayed the night before. The beauty about Latex is that until it fully cures water is all that is needed to remove it. I did use a small scrapper to get the removal process started. But after I had a small area removed the water was able to penetrate underneath and make the process easy. After that I dried it off really well and wet sanded the area with 400 grit and prepared to repaint it. In the picture below you will see that I am repainting the hatch and started to paint the canopy hatch too. With the Floetrol added I was able to get way with only shooting 4 or 5 coats to get the coverage I liked. The Floetrol allows you to shoot a heavier coat because it helps the latex to settle out good without running.

This was taken after about 3 coats of sprayed latex. Everything is coming out nice.

This was the end results after about 4 or 5 coats. The night before when I first shot the hatch I also shot the nose cone of my Super Reaper turbine jet. There was an area at the back corner that could use a bit more paint so I touched it up.

This picture is to show my cheap, homemade PVC paint stand. I made it from 3/4" PVC and so far it is ok for spraying light parts. I will probably make another one out of some bigger PVC to support larger more heavier parts. The yellow plywood board is not over spray, I used it to practice spraying over the weekend and adjust my gun to spray like I wanted.

The next day I mixed up some blue latex paint that I had custom mixed for me at Lowes over the weekend. I walked in with a piece of Insignia Blue Monokote and asked the paint guy to match it. After a few clicks of the mouse the color computer came up with the proper mix to match the Monokote color. Funny though when you look at the paint in the quart it actually looks baby blue in color. But as it dries it turns darker and matches Insignia Blue Monokote. This picture was taken after the first coat was sprayed. As you can see the coverage with the blue was a lot better then the yellow.

This is somewhat of a close up after the second coat was sprayed. After the 2nd coat was shot I pretty much had good coverage over the entire fuselage. However, I waited about 10 to 15 minutes for the second coat to settle out and shot a third coat to make sure I had enough paint down. The little bit of texture you see in the picture will actually settle out flat once the latex cures. When I was practicing on sample pieces last weekend I thought I was going to get "orange peel" effect, but the next day I noticed that everything settled out and the "orange peel" texture was gone.

Like everything else the more you practice and use a technique the better you get and the better your results are. So far I am very pleased with the results I obtain by spraying latex paint with my HVLP gun. I will continue to use this method and further my skill. It takes about 1 week for the latex to fully cure out and then I will spray a couple of coats of water based polyurethane as a clear coat.

Stay tune for more pictures!

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