Paint!

Last night I got out to the gliderport and Neal had left me a nearly full gallon of white Ekofill. Gold Mine!  Just have to add that to the list of the many ways Neal has saved the day during this project.  So I got the gun set up and started shooting primer on the rest of the left wing and all the control surfaces.  Nick showed up to help and he started sanding the fuselage and right wing.

I finished priming and cleaned the gun.  Nick finished sanding.  We re read the Stewarts manual for the millionth time and I got everything set up for mixing the paint.  4 Parts paint, 1 part catalyst and 1 part water.  We followed the instructions exactly and the viscocity was perfect. I didn't quite use all of the water.  Now was the big moment.

The first coat is super light with the flow controal at 3/4 open.  In fact I could barely see it over the primer.  Next coat has flow 7/8 open and the fuselage was starting to get a little more yellow.  Next is a full turn open and you can really see the topcoat color now.  Final coat at 1 1/4 turns open and this really fills everything in.  I was sure to keep the gun moving at all times for an even thin coat and was rewarded with no runs.  The topcoat did a fair job of covering up some of the minor runs I had in the primer but a few of the really heavy ones showed through.  The last coat went on with a dry look like the manual said but as it cured it developed a decent shine.  I have to say that it doesnt look too bad at all.

Tonight we'll sand the other wing and all the control surfaces and then paint all that stuff too, plus go over anything on the fuselage and wing that we see that we missed.  Plan for Wednesday is to shoot the stripes and N number. I got the template for the N number last night.  Thursday everything gets put together!