Yearly Archives: 2016

Interior Paint 1

This entry was posted in Painting and Detailing on April 22, 2016 by Peter

The other day I was able to finally get my fuselage moved to my paint booth for priming and painting the interior of the cockpit. I loaded up my air compressor and appropriate tools, and Squire and I were off!

Squire has a blast running around at the farm. This post covers two days. I did a fair amount of prep work on Saturday, and then the remaining prep, priming, and painting on Sunday. Due to the fumes, I left Squire at home on Sunday.

My good friend Chad helped me make an in-line dryer for the air supply. There are commercial solutions available for this. DeVillbiss sells a dryer for about $175 that uses proprietary cartridges to dry the air. My solution cost $40 for copper, $15 for desiccant, and about $40 for galvanized steel fittings. Here’s the basic idea. I found a quart of re-usable desiccant on Amazon. A little math allowed me to covert a quart into the volume of a cylinder. Using a 2″ diameter copper pipe, I would need a length of 18″ for 1 quart of desiccant. The copper dryer has a permanently attached screen in the bottom, and a removable screen in the top. Air flows from top to bottom, and there is a ball valve at the bottom to drain any condensation should there be any. The air flows up in the hopes that condensation moves down. I utilized the galvanized steel so that this can one day become part of a permanent installation in my garage. Here’s a diagram to show you how it is set up. Additionally there is a filter on the compressor and a disposable filter before the paint gun. I’m quite certain I will have clean dry air for my painting. Now, strictly speaking this is probably overkill. Certainly for the interior paint it is, but when it comes time to do base clear, the better my setup, the easier the task will be. There will be no worry of fish eyes!

I didn’t take any photos of the next stage; cleaning. I scuffed all the interior surfaces with scotchbrite. I also used 400 and 600 grit sandpaper where appropriate (powder coated items, the floor, and high traffic areas). I then cleaned the surfaces with acetone.

Next up it was time to tape the areas I didn’t want painted. The firewall is stainless steel and generally shouldn’t be painted for a couple of reasons. First and fore most it’s a FIREwall. In the event of an engine compartment fire, this is the only thing separating you. As such, it can be subjected to high heats and paint can give off very toxic fumes when burnt. Stainless is corrosion resistant by itself. Paint doesn’t stick easily to stainless. And finally, it looks good bare! Taping it off was a real pain in the rear.

I also taped off the rails. These have several rivets that haven’t been applied, and I will paint it afterwards.

The rudder cable is installed and I simply covered it with newspaper.

I wrapped plastic around the remainder of the fuselage.

Here is the result after priming.

Next it was time to ensure I mixed the paint correctly. I added a flattening agent to reduce glare and shine. My first try was 6 parts paint to 1 part hardener 1 part activator to 2 parts flattening agent. 6:1:1:2 or 8:2 (mix:flattener). That was too shiny. I doubled the amount of flattener. 8:4. This was too dull. I split the difference and found just the result I was looking for. 6:1:1:3 or 8:3.

The grey is dark. I sprayed a very fine coat and intended for a somewhat textured surface to produce a matte effect. Here are some photos of the end results.

Note these photos are color accurate. It is a very dark grey.

Theses photos are not color accurate. When the camera saw only grey the auto white balance results in a grey that is FAR lighter than reality.

There are a few spots that could use a bit more paint. However, I’m not sure it’s worth the time. They are all in very difficult to see locations.

Here is the firewall.

This photo does the fastback justice. It looks pretty good.

The next two photos make it look like serious orange peel. In reality it looks uniform and slightly textured. However, this did come out as the most textured portion of the paint. I am likely going to sand it slightly with 400 grit sandpaper and reapply the paint. When I first saw the plane after the paint dried for a couple of days I was very happy. However, when I got home and looked at these photos I became dismayed. I shared the photos with a couple folks and they agreed they didn’t like what they saw. I asked my buddy Mike to come take a look. Immediately as I walked in the paint booth, I thought “wow that looks way better than it does in the photos,” and he agreed.

So in the next sessions I should be repainting the back turtleback, and then painting the remaining interior parts.

Session time: 14 hours

Sun ‘N Fun – 2016 Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Flying Other on April 12, 2016 by Peter

My buddy Mike invited me to go to Sun N Fun with him in his RV-7. Well, actually, it was my idea! We intended to go last year, but schedules didn’t work out. This year everything came together (except media passes, but thats another story). Weather forced us to go early, and we packed up bright and early on a Wednesday morning April 6th. The RV-7 holds a ton of gear. We decided sharing a tent was for paupers, so I brought a separate three man tent.

Plenty of room for Mike’s bimmer and my wife’s Mazda.

It was early, but we were bright eyed and bushy tailed.

The flight down was absolutely wonderful. The early morning air was silk smooth, and we had a slight tail wind for about a third of the journey. The visibility and scenery was quite spectacular.

Darlington Race Track below!

Mike has never been to South Carolina! one of the greatest state’s in the union, and home of my alma mater, The Citadel!

We stopped in Baxley Georgia for cheap ($3.00) fuel and free food. The folks at the FBO were extremely nice, and the FBO is well appointed. There are two bedrooms upstairs that are available on a first come first serve basis.

Here is one of the bedrooms. The other one had a queen or king size bed. Both had individual bathrooms! I’d definitely stay over night here if I was on a long haul.

I did have a scare at Baxley. I thought I had left my wallet in Maryland. Mike captured the epiphany well.

But, alas, I found it. It slipped out of my pocket. Thank heavens. I was not looking forward to being without my wallet.

We once again attempted to capture our arrival. This time, the failure was Mike’s fault. The GoPro footage was very cloudy, so we didn’t have much to show. Once on the ground we set up camp.

Here is Mike’s tent. Note that the boy scout put his rain fly on backwards. It rained the first night. Draw your own conclusions about his interior.

My tent, on the other hand, while cheap was assembled properly and stayed perfectly dry.

Plenty of room inside!

Time to get our drink on! First thing you’ll notice about Sun N Fun versus Oshkosh is that the food is far superior, and the alcohol is far more plentiful! Both big pluses for Sun N Fun!

We tooled around to all the exibits. Here is the now famous RV-8R with the Rotec radial engine. This is fantastic craftsmanship! I love the detail on the interior.

Mitch Lock’s RV-14 was also on display. Sorry folks, but I don’t get the RV-14. Its a huge price premium on an RV-7 for only a little more capability. Maybe its because I’m only 5’6″ and 135lbs, but I’d be perfectly fine with an RV-7.

Mike and Chad Jensen. Second time I’ve met Chad. Super nice guy, and he hooked us up with t-shirts and hats!

The Vertical Power booth had a school project in their booth. Say hello to a homebrewed MFD PFD using the Raspberry Pi! Here is the next revolution in experimental aviation. Role your own avionics. Its coming folks, and its going to be yet another revolution.

We stopped by GRT and Garmin. My two top contenders for avionics in my RV-8. I love the Garmin gear. Its well integrated, beautifully designed, and includes a ton of functionality. However, I came into the show wanting GRT. I was really impressed by GRT’s attitude and the time they took to talk with us. Garmin’s business practices make me a little off-put, but I can’t blame them. I would do exactly what they are doing were I in their shoes.

GRT is brewing a cheaper TSO compliant GPS. Tentatively available this winter. Combined with a NAV/COM radio, you’re looking at a 50% reduction from a Garmin 650. I’ll be watching this closely.

I recently graduated with my MBA from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. One of my fellow classmates, Robert, owns the restaurant at Lakeland. He is also a former Florida State Wide Receiver. The food at Hallback’s Grill was phenomenal. I highly recommend stopping here for a bite to eat if you fly through the area.

I noticed that Patty Wagstaff was flying the Extra LX330. This is going to be the inspiration for my paint scheme, and I had to go check out the plane.

Our timing was perfect, as Patty Wagstaff happened to be walking by!

Mike is proud of his self appointed call sign of “half price.” You can’t have a call sign you like. Plus, this one is no longer accurate.

Getting around Sun N Fun is easy. Its smaller than Osh, but still plenty to see.

Without a doubt, the best part of Sun N Fun is the Homebuilt Camping set up by Mary Jane. She and her volunteers provide three meals a day, coolers full of beer, water, and sodas. Coffee and donuts in the morning, and all paid for by donations. On Friday night Mary Jane set up a Steak or Salmon dinner. I had the Salmon, and it was phenomenal.

We were able to kick back, drink some Yuengling, and enjoy the airshows.

We took off for the North on Saturday. I’m glad we split the return trip into two days. We were pretty tired from the event.

The trip from Lakeland to north of Atlanta had a strong headwind and a lot of turbulence. It wasn’t a fun trip. Here our the happy-turbulence faces.

On our way up back north, I snapped this photo. My wife is a horse-nut, and I wanted to show her how many tracks there are in the Ocala area. There are actually more tracks than arrows!

We stopped north of Atlanta to visit one of my classmate’s, and one of the best guys on the planet, Justin Katko. I hadn’t seen Justin since his wedding three years ago. It was great to reconnect, and Mike made a new friend for life!

Here’s Justin and I before we departed to the north the next day.

Overall Sun N Fun was spectacular. For me, I much prefer this event over Oshkosh. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy Osh, but Sun N Fun is more my style. More laid back, great time of year, fantastic food, readily available alcohol, and less crowds. All things I love. All the main exhibitors are there, and the airshows are essentially the same. However, the number of experimentals is far smaller, and there is less of many things. Each are different, and awesome in their own right, but Sun N Fun is hard to beat!

Interior Paint Prep

This entry was posted in Painting and Detailing on April 3, 2016 by Peter

My friend Matt was gracious enough to help me trailer my plane to the paint booth. I borrowed the trailer from a neighbor of my Dad, and my Dad’s truck, as mine was in use by the wife for horsey related activities.

I strapped the fuselage in three places. I used the engine stand that is bolted to the firewall, the center roll bar, and the horizontal stab rear spar connection points. I placed the fuse on a rubber stall matt, a layer of styrofoam and a moving blanket.