Seems all I've painted lately are canopies, canopies, canopies...

I painted a little 250 sized canopy as a quickie for a friend in a simple Arizona Flag theme... Then he asked me to do one (same style) for his 700 for the Arizona Electric Expo at the Cardinals Stadium going on this weekend.  Simple AZ flag design, real high contrast with his logo was all he wanted... So thats all he got!

So I tosse this together last night in about an hour and a half, finished the logo's and clearcoat tonight (ran out of steam yesterday or I would have finished it)...

Fiberglass Canopy with white gelcoat. Prep involved was basic red scotchbrite to knock down all the shine. This was probably the crappiest canopy quality I've dealt with yet, its very thin and inconsistent thicknesses etc throughout, and its "Warped/twisted"... Oh well.

Covered in Auto-Air Sealer white with mini detail gun. Cut out a star on the plotter using paint mask, applied it and then based with Semi-Opaque Yellow AA with the detail gun again. Grabbed the Dagr and did the rest with that. Red lines were all masked using Fineline tape. This step took the longest to get them even on both sides. Red was semi-opaqe red AA. Back masked and painted the blue with Semi-Opaque blue AA. Shot dropshadow for the star using Trans Smoke black AA. Pulled all the masks and gave it all a good Heatset... I heatset between every color change as well, but not as long, just quick dry shots... I backmasked the Star, painted it orange with Semi-Opaque Orange AA, unmasked and did another good heatset before masking for the logos. Logos were cut on the plotter, placed even, and shot with Pearlized Silver AA.

On to the clear... Same clear I've been using U-Pol System 20 European 2 part Clear with super slow hardener. This stuff is a GREAT deal for helments, canopies, small stuff... $60 for a gallon of clear and Hardener, you just can't beat that... Clear was going on just soooooo smooth... 60psi through the mini detail gun (non-HVLP) just makes for such smooth clear... That is all thanks to Rick Primo aka primocustoms (Primo Customs | Custom Paint and Fabrication). Light tack coat, then just hawged it on for 4 more coats... good 8-10min between coats. bout the 3rd coat a gnat landed in the clear... !#!%$@%, picked him out and got the clear to settle in good there (left behind a leg I think)... Overall it came out great, then I hit it with some foam trying to take a photo, big ol' 2" line in the clear... lol... suck. I should be able to buff it out in the morning...

Sorry for the rambling, I think I'm a little clear high, time to change the respirator I guess... lol

On to the pics