We did it!!!

 

We finished the painting.

It looks great!

We are happy.

Time for me to go home!

That's it!!

We finished the top cowl.

We finished the bottom cowl.

We put it together.  Of course the wings, the landing gear fairings, the wheel pants are not in place but... thar she be!

Today, Monday, I will re-sand the wing that didn't turn out and reshoot it with white and two coats of gloss.  Tuesday morning I should be heading for Fort Bragg.  Thirty six days this project took us.  More time than we expected but the end result is everything we expected.  Perfect!!!

My reward for helping my son Jeff paint his plane above bondo and bonding?  He is going to fly down to Fort Bragg/Ukiah area, pick me up and we are going to fly/camp our way to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the 2012 AirVenure EAA gathering in this plane!!!

Whoot!  Whoot!

"Lettuce Spray"

There comes a time when the only way forward is......

do the fuselage.  A much anticipated and worrisome part of the project.

Friday, two coats of white, let dry for an hour and mask off what is to remain white and define the silver stripe..

Saturday, shoot the red and masked it.  Then uncover and shoot the silver stripe.

Off with all the masking tape except for the canopy and then shoot two full coats of clear gloss.

Looking good!

Everyone is happy to finally have this crucial part finished.  Tomorrow we will attach the cowl and rudder and extend the red/white/silver detail onto them and finish them.
We have decided to repaint the rear half of the first wing we painted.

That will pretty much finish this project.  I should be heading back to Fort Bragg this Wednesday.
Jeff has about four months of finish work before he moves it to a hanger where it will finally be completely assembled.

The wheel pants are done!

No runs, no hits, no errors!!

Whoot Whoot!

Jeff took today off work.  The three day weekend marathon begins.

We're gonna paint the fuselage!!!

Cross your fingers!!!

Pressing on.

I still can't get over how perfect that second wing turned out!!!

Jeff made little caster wheeled dollies to set the main gear on.  Makes it easier to move the fuselage around in the shop.  Here we rolled it out a ways to shoot some primer on it.  The photo gives you and idea of the size of the plane.  This occasion was also the first time the plane has seen the light of day in three and a half years!

For the first time we finally got to shoot some red on the parts that end up being all red, like these landing gear strut fairings.  Nice!

Even the grand kids are starting to smile!!

And now, the wing tips!  That notch you see is where the navigational light and strobe light go.  They will be covered with a clear Plexiglas fairing when done.

This is also our first attempt at our plan for a red and silver stripe.

The white has been shot and masked.  The red has been shot and masked.  Now for the silver.

After the silver was dry to touch all masking was removed and two coats of clear gloss shot over everything.

Perfect!!

The wheel pants are next.

Our dark night of the soul.

We were finally ready to shoot the right wing.  Primed, prepped and ready.

After two coats of base coat white and two coats of clear it didn't look too bad until we got to looking closer.

Orange peel!!

Not everywhere.  In fact some areas were perfect but there was one patch of ugly and of course it had to be on the top side and sort of in the middle of the wing.  Not good.

The wind in our sails was dumped and we entered a phase of wondering if we were really capable of pulling this off.  The wing really was definitely unacceptable.  The bad area is going to have to be sanded down and re-shot but the question is.  Should this old man step aside and Jeff find a real painter? 

Jeff made some calls, found a real painter who would be willing to come out and take a look but not for several days.  So there we were with not a whole lot to say to each other.  Sort of sick.

We decided to go out to the local airport and look at some planes.  We walked around from hanger to hanger and looked at paint jobs.  By golly, we ain't the only one who has had problems.

We returned home and decided to check the spray gun for "starving" and found some paint build-up in the nozzle area.  We "really" cleaned the gun and decided to go ahead and try shooting the second wing with even closer attention to how much paint we were putting on with the thought to lean towards the heavy side rather than the light.  Heavy could mean runs but light definitely means orange peel.

Girding our loins for battle with our minds right we entered the booth and gave it our absolutely best attempt and...

WOW!

We pulled it off!!

We are very pleased.  Confidence has been restored.

Together again!!

Whoot Whoot!

It's 4:30 in the morning. Do you know where your kids are?

One of mine's in there!!!

Yep, Jeff is out in the shop every morning at 4:00AM.  I usually join him by 4:30 or 5:00.

We get a few things done and figure out what's next before we knock off at 6:00 in the morning so he can get ready to go to work and I have my oatmeal and tea. 

I return to the shop to catch up on various parts that need more "love" ( filler and smoothing).

Jeff is working half days this week so he usually gets back to the project by 1:00 in the afternoon and then we get the next batch ready for base coat and clear; dry sand with 400 grit, move into the spray booth and then tack off.

Last evening we had another batch of finished parts,

the vertical stabilizer and,

the horizontal stabilizer.

We let them dry overnight and bag them in paper in the morning.

Life is good!!