Paint Day

I woke up early today and intended to put in allot of hours into painting various parts. Paint and wait, sand and then reprimer or paint and so on...

What you see is four white half moon details, next to Krider Blue painted side vents, next to pocket vents, above is the center vents and to the right is 2 paints of white on the center ankle

Here is a AL Horseshoe hanging from a wire, blue taped, sanded and ready for primer.

I'm also putting filler on the skirt on the left, primered the two Horseshoes and put filler on both legs near the shoulder details.

Now I have a first coat of white on both Horseshoes. These will sit in the sun for a while and 24 hours later I'll inspect, maybe sand and put in filler if needed. If the part passes that I'll put one more final coat of white on them.

I'm happy with the results so far and this is just the first coat of white. I taped the inside of the buttons and details. I can later paint the inside button and shoulder details white if I want to change it up.

I pulled off the bottom ring of my Comm8A frame and I also pulled off the bottom door plate.  The white skirt connects to some of the this bottom and it needs to be painted white.

Now that beautiful blue is gone and here is the primer. The end justify the means in this case.

So there you have it. What was an awesome anodized blue bottom plate painted satin white and ready to cover the areas the JAG Skirt dont. Note all the tiny machine holes in this frame for possible add ons.

I have primed the JAG Skirt and then added some filler over the welded in bolts. After this drys I'll put some 120 grit sand paper on my cheap black N decker sander and have at it.

This is only the first coat of white on the skirt. I like to let this sit in the shade for 90 minutes and wait for the paint to set up. Then I put these parts in direct sun and Phoenix sun bakes the parts over a few days.  If you wait 3-4 days of your parts in the sun your finger prints won't be in your parts. The paint is cured and you don't have all those issues I read about with painting. 

I spray on a left to right pattern for coverage first. Then after this layer is painted on I do a up and down pattern. Then I paint a cross hatch pattern of up and down spray to cover all areas of the the part completely.

I had my wife tape up the power coupler and I'd paint it. She wanted to help build any part of this project so I said, hey tape up a PC.

Here is the Purple pass.

15 Minutes later I paint on the blue and leave the part to dry.

The upper right side is messed up. I'll have to fry this part in the sun for days. After 6 days curing outside in the AZ heat over 100 the silver paint still didn't completely dry as it looks above IMO. Its okay from 5 foot away or until I go imperial and paint this part black!

Three large AL parts with two coats of satin white paint on them sitting around the pool on the diving board curing in the sun. Ya, the pool needs more chlorine due to be dipping R2 parts in the pool and wet sanding them. 

As for the blue tape, I've learned my lesson and I'll remove the blue tape inside the horseshoes before the sun comes up. That blue tape will be hard to remove after a while in the Phoenix sun. Then I'll let the part bake tape free to continue to cure for a couple of days and assemble the droid this weekend. Most of it laying all over the backyard right now. I find as you build you often put your droid together as much as you can, then break him down and repeat the process until your 'done'. if that ever could be done droid building..

Now I just wait a few days and put these back together and rebuild the legs painted this time. Its dark so the white photographs a grey color but its as white as all the parts seen the droid so far.

I painted a first coat of white satin on the legs. If you have lots of cans of paint, you can can't paint a droid with one can of white paint. You're going to need six cans or more of white for an R2-D2 IMO. Use your fresh can of paint for the second coat or finish coat. Used cans of paint that kinda of sputter, have compression issues, seem like duds or have problems for your first coat When putting on a final coat use a fresh can of paint.

This is what I'm using for paint from Lowes. Rustoleum Satin White 15oz can. I also primerd the boosters covers.

Booster Covers painted in Krider Blue. This little piece of drywall has been painted several colors over the past couple of months. I think so far I've went through 3 cans of primer paint, and 3 15oz cans of Satin White. Keep in mind some cans will turn out duds. Spray out splatter or have lack of compression issues. You'll go through quite a few cans painting a droid and be confident to do it again and fix mistakes.