Pretti(er) when Pink(er)

With work on the avionics well underway, the long pole in the build has become painting. I was supposed to have it done earlier this year, but when the painter saw I had not Read The Manual (RTFM) and used a Sharpie on the covering, he refused to proceed since Sharpies will bleed through. I halted painting and stewed about it for a while, trying to decide if I wanted to do the smart thing, stip off all the covering and redo it the way I should have, or go ahead and paint anyway, knowing the Sharpie was going to bleed through. After a while I realized that if it bled through, I could alter the design and cover the marks with the vinyl from the design, so I contacted my painter and gave him the go-ahead. Unfortunately, my painter had moved on to other projects and was now backed up for months with work, but we worked out an arrangement where I could use his paint booth and do it myself. *gulp*.

Step 1: Moving and cleaning.

My friend has a REALLY nice paint booth, first step was to give it a good blowing and vacuuming.

It's been so long since I put the first coat of PolyBrush on, some tapes had lifted and needed a touchup with the iron.

In other places the boiled linseed oil had seeped through rivet holes and also needed a wipe with MEK.

Then there were the Sharpie marks....

First, some practice. Long time ago I had built a couple 3x4 practices pieces out of PVC pipe and leftover fabric, now was the time to put them to use. I've used a gun before, so it was a matter of knocking the rust off my spraying technique.

Intentionally, I sprayed too much into one area and made it run so I could practice fixing it, for when it happens on the real control surfaces.

Trying to get that "just enough to cover but not so much it will run" amount.

But before we started spraying, some 1/4-28 threaded rod was cut down, honed,

bent into hooks and threaded into the nutplates for the hinges.

This time, I RTFM'd the manual and caught this little gem at the end. It's been about 7 years since I covered the last piece, so it's a good thing I saw this.

If in doubt, write it out.

Sludge, sludge, everywhere. Good thing there's a paint shaker to spare.

Here's why I made up the hooks. A forest of control surfaces ready to be painted. I'm going in.

shit shit shit shit....... This is not a drill. Happened more than once, less than a lot. Was able to fix each one, whew! (It's not if you make a mistake, but how well you can recover from one.)

Some tapes started peeling up, you didn't want to use the iron much, best to use it through a piece of parchment paper.

No matter how careful I was in the prep, there were still dust/grit/whatever on the control surfaces. You could not see most of them, but they felt huge when I ran my hand over them. How big is too big? I knew it when I saw it, and took the time to iron or peel off the ones that would come off easily. Time will show how bad they are, but... this is not my umpteenth airplane build, and I'm not going for a Lindy award at Oshkosh. This caged bird ain't singing, Osp wants to FLY!!!!!