Paint Shop update

I stopped out at the paint shop to check on the progress. Things are moving along, but it will still be 4 or 5 weeks before I am back in the air. Here you can see that the plane has reverted back to the dusty, multi-colored half finished look of last winter. The winglets, which I have revised several times are getting touched up here.

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Even the areas where I couldn't see any flaw were revised after the paint shop found low spots and other imperfections. The entire plane has been guide coated, spot filled and resanded.

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The doors in particular needed some finesse work. The leading edge stuck out ever so slightly, but enough to feel, past the fuselage. They are now perfectly flush. You can see the black guide coat in this shot.

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The infamous grey swoosh stripe is now blended in and ready to disappear into final paint.

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She looks dirty, but much smoother.
Since she is going to be out of service most of February, I decided to use the time to make some other upgrades and improvements.

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One of the upgrades is to refinish the prop. The Aerocomposites prop has performed well, but the grit on the runway at Sebastian really seemed to eat up the paint. I contacted the manufacturer for the paint specs and am going to have the paint shop refinish it.

If you enlarge the picture and look halfway between the sticker and the stripes near the metal strip, you will notice my repair of a large nick caused when a screw departed through the prop. I love that this sort of damage is easily filled. Once I have matching paint, any future repairs will be invisible.

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The other upgrades will be to the interior. I got these terrific adjustable seat mechanisms from Velocity and can't wait to put them in. Of course, I'll first spend some time in the shop easing the edges and buffing them to a mirror shine.

I'm also going to redo the headliner. I had used upholstered 1/8 inch Kydex plastic sheets flexed and screwed to the roof. It looked good, but I lost significant headroom in the middle over the pilot's seat where I need it most. I am going to replace it with upholstered 1/8 inch Ensolite glued to the overhead.

I'll follow up with more updates.

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