Small touches make a difference

Back in July I was looking things over, getting ready for lift and mate again, and started looking at things. I realized that the floor pan needed a touch of something, and thought about spray painting it. Of course, you can't spray paint aluminum easily, and since it would be under foot it would chip, etc, so I decided to have it powder coated.

On the way to the powder coater I thought Hmmm.... How about a touch of somthing nice, like a design, or better yet, the n-number and name? I liked that idea, but the gent doing the powder coating warned me that it was not easily done. First we'd have to get a stencil cut from the special high temperature tape used in powder coating (if that was possible), then there would be the problem of the stencil holding its shape in the oven. I decided to take the gamble, and after some problems with the stencil cutter an attempt was made. The results were as we feared, the tape did not hold and the lettering smeared.

If I had taken the time to check the internet I would have found others in the car rebuild hobby had tried doing this, their outcome had been the same, and I would not have wasted my time. Oh well.......

Instead the internet also showed me how it should have been done. After stripping and recoating the pan, I took it over to the gang at Stan's Auto Body. Jeff and Melissa told me to go around the corner to Signs Plus, who quickly cut a stencil

and while I was gone on a trip Ryan painted and clearcoated the pan. Beautiful. Exactly what I wanted.

In a twist of fate, Ryan used to work for Boeing. In Everett. In their paint shop. Painting airplanes. Specifically, 777s. Ryan has now painted the extremes, my 660,000# work airplane and my 1,400# fun plane. How cool is that????