Within a couple of days, the manager emailed back to say his brother and his father were both pilots and that I would be welcome to use the paint booth in their training center. It had everything I needed. A huge compressor, a down-draft filtration system, a clean storage area and more. - Thank you Auto Body Supply
Last week I got up very early for several days and with the help of my friend Joe Foley, went to the paint shop and painted before my working day began.
I am really pleased with the results:
I used one brushed coat and one sprayed coat of PolyBrush, one coat of PolySpray, one coat of PolyTone Insignia white (with UV additive) and one coat of Ranthane AN Orange Yellow. Deliberately flaunting the instructions, I applied the Ranthane within 20 minute of spraying the underlying PolyTone. This reduced the gloss significantly and achieved exactly the appearance I was loooking for.
This is the lightest system I know of that provides adequate coverage. - I weighed the wings after I painted them. Each bottom wing weighs 33 lbs and each aileron 5 lbs for a total of 38 lbs per wing. I thought I read that they were supposed to weigh 25 lbs, but I don't think I could have added 50% in restoring them. I was pretty careful. Our bathroom scales may not be too accurate though.
The red flags were painted in Tennessee Red and carefully duplicated from the data Larry Ernewein provided.
I like Ranthane paint a lot. It is less expensive than Aerothane (because when you buy a gallon, you get a gallon, not "enough to make a gallon of thinned, catalyzed paint" which is the case with Aerothane) It is also much easier to spray than Aerothane, which is prone to running (at least it is if you are as bad a painter as me). The coverage is amazing too. Believe it or not, I used only 1.3 gallons for the whole aircraft.
Update: I was able to weigh the entire aircraft for the first time this evening. It weighed 898 lbs (407 Kg), including a couple of gallons of fuel, but not including the flying and landing wires. I am so pleased all my weight savaing work resulted in such a low figure. Not bad for a CASA 2000 series Jungmann with a metalized belly, Cleveland wheels, a starter, radio and 17 AH, 28v Battery. I hope I don't have to add any weight to get the CG right!