Cockpit Topcoat Complete

Spent a fun weekend in Oshkosh taking the SportAir Electrical Systems class. It was time well spent. They're not gonna make you an electrical engineer in 2 days. But it's a good overview of what's needed when building a plane, important things to keep in mind when planning your avionics and a chance to learn some new skills like crimping on coax connectors. The bride went with me and we had a nice hotel on Lake Winnebago. Home early yesterday and back into the garage. Reprimed some thin areas I'd sanded and spent a lot of time cleaning and prepping the surface for topcoat. Today I was up early to beat the AZ heat and had the AC cranked to keep the garage as cool as possible. Went over all surfaces one last time with compressed air, tack rag and and final alcohol wipe. After reviewing the Stewart directions for EcoCrylic application one last time I mixed up some practice paint and shot some test panels to check the paint gun settings. I found using 20 psi at the gun, dialing down the fluid control knob and adjusting to a medium fan size gave me the control and coverage I wanted for fog coats. But without excessive overspray. I started with the aft section and misted on multiple fog coats to build up color saturation and minimize orange peel. Then I mixed up a second batch and did the footwell, panel and finally canopy rails last. I was very happy with my color selection. The Smoke Grey gave me the light colored gray I was looking for. Overall it seemed to come out OK. I had no runs that I'm aware of and just 1 small mystery drip on the floor deep in a footwell. There was some dirt and nibs that ended up in the paint on the baggage floor. No amount of cleaning was going to prevent that with all the nooks and crannies for dirt to hide in. Once it's all dry tomorrow I'll peel all the masking off and see where I'm at. I'm just glad to have this task finally done. It took way too long. But in spite of all the work and equipment needed I'm glad I chose this method of painting. I think it'll be durable and attractive over the long run. Now I can finally get back to systems installation.