Paint Scheme Design: Yet another one...

Here's one I'm pondering that I pulled (and tweaked with zigzag) from American Champion site. I was thinking with some good plastic fine line tape I could mask the white topcoat below and create the two white stripes, then should be able to blast the two red stripes all at once. Hmmm.... I also like how red stripes stop shy of the spinner... And here's yet another variation of an earlier scheme. I kind of like the white stripe between the gray stripe and the gray stripe set back at the front. Getting down to crunch time now, as begin priming fuse tomorrow. I think it's looking like this one....

Painting: Left Wing

The wings are now complete and painted. Following are pics of finished product for left wing. I discovered during this phase that a handheld vibratory sander works great for sanding primed coats. I found can manage appearance of orange peel by reducing paint 25% on first pass, and then 40% on second pass of cross coat. Biggest challenge now is avoiding runs.

Paint Scheme Design: Revised Again

I'm back to considering a variation of my original design. I wanted to maintain symmetry around the spinner profile centerline: this is accompolished with the white middle stripe up front. I also wanted the split color scheme to merge at the aft corner of the fuselage, which is done here. This design also eliminates a zigzag stripe, which adds more complexity; everything is linear here. Finally, I wanted to keep the top of the door exterior white so there was not an awkward color transition to the white interior at the top of the door.

I'm hoping to just paint the plastic tip bow covers red, so don't have to fool with painting wing or ailerons red and likewise making sure the stripes match up.

Grass Airstrip Design

I've decided to move forward and design an airfield for the plane someday. It's located on a 40 acre parcel I own, which is entirely wooded. I will have a 200' wide swath logged and the proceeds will go towards development of a 1,400' by 75' wide landing strip. The 75' width will be completely grubbed and regraded. Topsoil will be stripped, stockpiled and then replaced. Seeding, fertilizing and mulching will then follow.


Following is my initial shot at a regrading/drainage plan, based off a site topo survey I performed. Proposed ground in pink, contour interval=1'. Stationing=50'. Several PVC culverts will be constructed under the strip.
Next figure shows a profile of the finished grade centerline, extending at -0.3 and -1.6%, respectively.
Next figure shows some of the cross sections. In general, the runway will be crowned to drain at 1.5% in each direction and then side-slopes will be constructed at 3:1. The site was designed to balance cut/fills with a net quantity moved of 2,800 CY.

Revised Paint Scheme

After much long and hard deliberation, I have finally settled on a paint scheme that looks good yet limits complexity. However, still not sure on stripe color...black is quickly fading from contention...gray seems to speak to me most, but what shade?

Painting: Right Wing

Here's the masked off root rib with cardboard to fit. Used rib jig to trace it.

One of many sanding sessions, been using 320 grit wet for primer and 400 grit wet for topcoat...

I had overall better luck avoiding orange peel on final topcoat this time, by reducing mixture 40-50%. I also made sure to visibily flow the paint on. The down side, due to the thinner mixture, I had lots of runs occuring on the near vertical areas, such as LE/TE spars when the wing was laid horizontal. I quickly cleaned them up with a clean wet sponge, with only minimal negative effect. Forget about spraying wings vertical on the stand, as runs occured galore. So had to spray horizontal, which of course set up more horizontal area for crap to rain down on during curing process. I still much prefer final product: nice smooth wet finish. Think I've got a method now to get reproducible results. On to the left wing....

Painting: Horiz Stabilizors, Elevators, Rudder

I finished spraying the tail feathers. First pic shows them being positioned horizontally on saw horses.

Next pic shows what first coat of primer looks like on one side.

Here is pic after first top coat.

Here is pic following second top coat. I hung all the pieces at this point, thinking I could shoot everything at once and minimize contamination on coat. This worked well, but I neglected to consider air pressure of spray on pieces which resulted in them becoming moving targets during spraying. Ended up with orange peel on all of them, but in the interest of time, I decided to press on. Thankfully, I'm done dealing with saw horses and hanging stuff on wires as now on to the big stuff mounted on the rotisserie stand. Will have much more control now.

I have the recurring problem of orange peel developing only on the second pass of each top coat. Never the first one. I currently suspect maybe I'm applying first pass on to heavy. Hope to resolve during shooting of wings, which are next.