Painting Before or After Fuselage Assembly?

I complete major assemblies prior to painting for the very reason you mentioned, you can't fill and sand seams without messing up the paint. For aircraft I'll get the major fuselage, wings, and empennage assembled before painting. I also usually temporarily tack things like gear doors in place. A lot of guys mask their canopies and tack them in place as well, but I tend to leave that until last and just mask off the cockpit.

ditto on what Scott said... for the cockpit I usually take wet tissue paper or paper towel (not dripping, more like very moist) and stuff it in the cockpit until it covers all the interior and inner sidewalls. You can spray away at that point, if the tissue dries and bits stick tot he interior a little water and a soft brush will get them off. Then you can future decal and weather.

Then I put on the gear, ordnance and any other exterior pieces, the canopy is last usually...

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corrected typos

Thanks guys for the responses (and for not making me feel like a dummy)! They make good sense and sound very do-able. I think I've got a handle on it. My one project is an RAH-66 Comanche and it has two items (cannon and FLIR pod) that are not glued, but "captured" between the fuselage halves when they are mated. I could put those in and mask them prior to paintng, but I think it will affect paint coverage on the fuselage under/around them. Any ideas on that? (You didn't really think you'd get off that easy did ya?) LOL. Thanks again...
Bruce

Your cannon and FLIR would be a different sort of problem, and without looking at the model, It is hard to know what the best answer is. In situations like that, I would probably first look to modify the mounting so that the parts could be installed after gluing the fusealge, filling, sanding, and painting.

If there is no way but to install the cannon and FLIR when the fuselage is assembled, doing some local prefinishing might be in order. Dry fit the fuselage, and if there is any major sanding and shaping needed around the cannon and FLIR, do it before assembly. You may even find it useful to use a coupl of drops of super glue to hold the fuselage halves together. The idea is to get the shape as perfect as possible, so that there will be a minimum of fuss to fill the seam after gluing for real. Before assemby, paint the area where the cannon and FLIR will mount. Assemble the fuselage. With luck, any parts of the seam that go under the cannon and FLIR are pretty good and will need only a bit of touch up, done carefully to not mess up the cannon and FLIR, and only minimally tweak the paint anound the seam. Now to touch up the fuselage paint, use a small brush, and a fairly thinned paint to alleviate and brush marks. At this point the cannon and FLIR should have good paint all the way underneath them, so any underneath coverage issues due to masking them become moot.

Andy

Very Cool, Andy!! Thanks for the techniques - laid out perfectly. ...even make sense to me. Thanks all! Well, here goes... Wish me luck.
Bruce

QUOTE: Originally posted by MetsBruce Wish me luck.

Good Luck Bruce! When you get the beast finished, be sure to post some photos of it.

Andy

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900 for the cockpit I usually take wet tissue paper or paper towel (not dripping, more like very moist) and stuff it in

This technique works very well in other areas too - jet inlets/outlets, deep undercarriage bays. It does remove surprisingly cleanly but if left in situ for long periods will shrink reducing effectiveness. In this situation I just use an eyedropper to rehydrate and re-expand the mask. For shallow bays I find blue tac or similar a good way to go for masking encouraged into place with a toothpick. The only thing I like to do differently is attatch the canopy and address that seam prior to painting - just a personal preference.
to the forum - this is truly a great place!