Day 46

We have painted our first part! It turned out so great. The blue was a perfect choice.

We finished cleaning our paint booth to remove any dirt and dust and then got our canopy hung. We then got it cleaned and wiped down using a water based cleaner to remove any grease and dirt from the surface. Right before we started spraying, we ran over it with a cheese cloth to remove any fine dust or lint. (Lots of careful steps taken to remove any grease, dirt and dust. Any small imperfections will show up in the final product)

Once we had everything ready to go, we fist sprayed a coat of epoxy sealer (light grey) to make sure there was good adhesion to the canopy surface. That takes about an hour to flash. Once it was dry to the touch, we tacked it off again with the cheese cloth and sprayed the first coat of blue enamel paint. It takes about 15 minutes to dry enough to apply a topcoat.

We were very happy with how it turned out. We took care to get around all the edges and get an even coat on everything. Once it has dried really well over a couple of days, we will be able to install it onto the fuselage. Thats going to be very cool.

During the day in-between getting the canopy ready and painting we also worked on getting the control tubes finished. It was a little difficult doing them at this stage of the build. Would have been much easier when there was more access, but it was what it was. We got the control tubes to move smoothly and then worked on getting the seat belt reinforcement plates riveted in. We ended up having to drill out and remove the elevator stop because we could not access the rivets. We would have just riveted them from the inside of the landing gear box, but it had already been closed up. All in all, it worked out, it just was a bit of a pain to get to it all. We are now working on getting the tube locks riveted in now, which is also a little painstaking because they each have about 10 rivets that have to all be hand pulled (Times 6 locks...) We only have got one finished today but will work on the rest tomorrow and get the flap actuator installed as well.