The Murphy Builders Site

Tim,

*Calculating Weight of Dry Paint

*

*Q: I want to paint an aircraft I am building, but weight is a concern. I
know I can weigh the paint by the gallon, but does the weight when it dries
differ from the weight when it is applied wet? How can I figure this out?*

A: Refer to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) where it should tell you
the percent weight solids of the paint. Suppose the % Wt solids is 60% and
the weight of the paint is 9.0 lbs/gal, then the weight of the solid paint
will be 5.4 lbs/gal. If you intend to spray apply the coating to the
aircraft using an HVLP spray gun, you can guesstimate that your transfer
efficiency will be about 50%. In other words for every gallon of paint that
you use, only 2.7 lbs of solid paint is deposited on the aircraft. The
remainder falls to the floor or goes into the filters of a spray booth.
Hence, if you know approximately how many gallons of paint you will need to
purchase, you can estimate the weight of the solid paint that will be
deposited.
Web Link -- www.paintcenter.org/rj/oct07n.cfm

My "transfer efficiency" or paint on airframe vs. paint not on airplane
was more like 80% with a hvlp gun. But you will be lucky if you only
lose 10% more mixing/leftover/spillage with a two component epoxy or
urethane.

So less than 3 quarts of primer.
And about 6 quarts of paint (one cross coat) x 70% x %solids.

That would be about minimum I suspect as most machines have more and
thicker paint than mine and you won't get away with one coat if using
more than one color.

Ken

Anybody know the painted surface area of an average Rebel? I'm guessing it's
somewhere between 300 and 400 sq. ft.