painting.htm

Tips for painting your stock Walkera canopy

The main problem is getting paint to stick to the plastic material without cracking and peeling off.

The easiest way I have found to solve this problem is to use "Krylon Fusion" as a primer!

The "Fusion" paints come in quite a few colors (black,white,blue,red etc.) and various shades.

But that doesn't really matter all that much if you just want to use it as a primer. The Fusion paint bonds itself to the plastic and when dry in 15 minutes, can be painted-over with just about any other spraypaint color(s) you want.

If you want to use only Krylon Fusion paints for the whole process, they have some awesome paints and finishes to choose from. There's finishes like "Metalic Shimmer", "Hammered", "Mystic Prism" and "Textured Shimmer" to name a few.

The important thing no matter which you choose, you must first clean all of the grease, oils and smudges off of the canopy with something like Windex glass cleaner using a soft cloth. Make sure it's dry and then use blue painter's masking tape to mask off the areas you want to stay clear (like the windshield).

If you're just going for one solid color for the canopy, one way to protect the paint from scratches and have an instant glossy finish, is to simply paint the inside. Of course this means you'll have to mask off the windshield and any desired clear spots, from the inside. This is a little harder to do, but the end results look very nice.

However you choose to do it, apply the paint in light coats. The heavier you put it on, the longer it takes to dry, you'll end up with ugly paint runs and run the risk of the paint bleeding past the edges of your masking tape. If you're going to be layering different colors on top of the other using more masking tape, I'd suggest ignoring the "15 minute drying time" on the can and wait a full day between coats. This will help insure that the paint sticks to the previous layer of paint and not the masking tape. Trust me here, I've put the "Eddie Van Halen Stripes" on many things over the years and that requires primer, base coat (black), masking tape, second coat (white), masking tape, third coat (red), peel off all the layers of tape, top coat (clear).

The "Van Halen Stripe" method is the same for the canopy. The final "top coat" you are going to want to use to give it a nice shiny (or satin) clear coat that won't turn yellow from exposure to the sun, is called Krylon "Acrylic Crystal Clear".

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