Saturday, March 26, 2011

Big One Done!

I feel much better now! All the anxiety about how to best spray that basic fuselage are now a moot point. I finished it and there's only one spot I have to touch up with tomorrow's batch of parts that get painted.
But let's start in the correct order. I finished the masking tape job in the morning.




I cleared out the paint booth and vacuumed out the dead bugs and some dust that had collected on the floor. I also put a 6' long folding table in there and covered it with a tarp. Underneath the tarp is mover's blanket to provide some cushion for the fuselage.


Then I had to move the fuselage into the paint booth. I thought I had measured it to require around 7' of space but I obviously hadn't taken into account that the fuselage might sit a bit tilted and therefore require more room than just the 7'. The paint booth was built using 8' long 2x4s which I think now to be too short to be comfortable. If you follow my lead consider using 10' long 2x4s to get a bit more room to move around the fuse!
I got it in however, but then needed to rely on the pressure from the fan to make the door plastic foil bulge to get around the thing. Not very comforting!


Spraying itself was simple and much easier than I thought. Although I didn't mix enough paint (I used 180 grams for part A) I was able to finish 3 good coats. On the last, third, coat I focused on the visible high stress areas, the foot area and the baggage area. It turned out to be enough paint everywhere and the finish is great. Only in one spot I had put some masking tape on where I shouldn't have but it's in the gap where the wing spars will sit and so a brush touch-up will be sufficient.


This is two hours after spraying and the masking tape is still on.


Same time but different angle.

Another two hours later I returned and removed the masking tape as the paint was "dry" to the touch. Then I moved it out of the booth and into the shop where it is easier to maintain the necessary temperature for the curing process.




I just hope the color turns out not to be too bright. On the paint chips I selected it from it looked two steps darker than it looks now....

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