Well the painting took a long time. About 430 hours, from May to November. Overall I am happy with the results for my first painting job. The space I had was tight, and that caused a lot of extra work. If I had a larger space I would do it again. (Or a smaller plane) If I only had the space I have and an RV-10, I would probably get it done instead of doing it myself. I am confident that I can re-paint parts that end up needing mods or being replaced which is a big plus. It was a good learning experience. I had NO problems with fish-eyes. My only problems with the paint were getting dust/lint in the paint. Guess I did not build a tight enough paint booth. Some pictures, then some more comments about things I learned along the way.  Laying out the pattern (HS)and making templates so both sides will be the same.  HS painted. This was the first piece with all the striping.  Masking the VS for Blue  Wing Painted. Panted fuel tanks separate, but ended up with a slight difference in color of the blue. Next time would paint them as 1 unit. You can see the rotating wing stand I made for painting. It rotates on the center bolt, the nut tightened enough to provide friction to keep it in place. There are similar 2x4 pieces inside the lightening holes that the bolts are going through. On the Inboard side it is bolted to the spar. Total cost was $30. Worked well.   Primed the bottom white (that is needed under blue), and top Grey primer (needed to see your coverage of white). White topcoat covers all the grey, but keeps from having a full white topcoat under the blue.  Lining up the N-Numbers  Masked for Shadow  Numbers complete. Love them. Notes for gun settings Paint : tack coats open to 4:30 position. First wet coat open to 1:00 position. Second wet coat open to 12:00 position. Primer : No tack coat. Causes primer to be rough. Open to 12:00 position from start. I ended up priming outside instead of in the paint booth. The primer caused a lot of paint dust in the booth that would then cause the final coat to have more dust in it. primer dries quickly, and any small amount of trash can be sanded out.  Plane painting done (actually in this picture the wing root farings and tail intersection farings are not painted. As you can see the fuel tank is a slightly lighter shade. Looks great from 5 feet. closer you can see imperfections. Total cost was probably about $4000 in tools and materials. After I get it flying I will try to go back and summarize my times and expenses and give an after action report. |
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