Fabric/Painting Test Panel

With the covering/painting phase of the project on the near horizon I have started thinking about the alternatives. I have attended EAA workshops for both TIG welding and fabric covering. The welding class convinced me that I would never reach the skill level required to do a top notch job on the Skoyte fuselage structure. The fabric school, however, convinced me that I have a good chance of doing an acceptable job covering the Skyote myself. I have participated in a couple of covering jobs since the workshop, both using the PolyFiber system and PolyTone paint.
http://www.polyfiber.com/

I have also studied the line of waterborne adhesives and paints offered by Stewart Systems. I certainly like the user friendly qualities of the waterborne products. Stewart also has an excellent set of DVD's which illustrate the covering and finishing process in great detail. I think they are worth watching no matter which system you choose. You can go to: http://www.stewartsystems.aero/ or you can go to YouTube and enter "Stewart Systems" to see the videos.

I decided to make up a test panel and cover and finish it with Stewart products. This will give me a good comparison of the two systems. I am leaning toward the Stewart products but I want to have a little more experience with it before I make the final decision.

I glued up an imaginary airfoil panel using some plywood scraps and other junk. It is about 20"x20".


Stewart Systems Ekobond adhesive is blue/green in color. Unlike Polyfiber Polytac adhesive it has no oder. I covered this test panel in the kitchen during a recent snow with no complaints from my wife!

I am keeping up with the uncovered, covered, primed and painted weights of the test panel.

The panel in the photo below has two "cross-coats" of Ekofill primer/filler/UV barrier applied by brush. The next two coats of Ekofill will be sprayed. The color is actually a charcoal grey.

Two coats of EkoFill white provides a good base for the "Federal Yellow" EkoPoly topcoat.


Four "cross-coats" of EkoPoly gave good coverage for the final top coat. The EkoPoly gives a nice high gloss finish. I got just a little bit of orange peel. The small test panel didn't allow much opportunity to experiment with gun settings but I am only off about one click from ideal.