Days 214-216

It’s been busy around the holidays. Been pushing hard to get stuff ready for paint and finished.

We installed the exhaust shroud onto the lower cowling and molded it to look like a singular part. We did this by bonding the two together with some epoxy glue and then riveting it to insure it one would never fall off. We then applied fiberglass. Once hardened then we sanded it match the contour of the cowling. Once that was looking good we then added body filler and molded the parts in perfectly. Once everything was looking good we then sprayed thick body primer on. Once it dries over the weekend we then wet sanded and final sanded the part to make it perfectly smooth. We then placed it up on the plane to make sure with fit (which it did, wonderfully) and map out where the two toned paint would go. We then sanded and scuffed the rest of the panel to get it ready for paint.

We have also final prepared and painted the flaps, ailerons, wing transitions and a few miscellaneous parts silver. The process is the same as other times we have painted. It just takes time to get everything scuffed, wiped down, sealed and painted. The parts turned out magnificent though.