The MAAC fly-in was great - my favorite event of the year. The weather all around the area was sketchy, but at Brodhead was great for the majority of the time. Did a lot of flying in the Kelch airplanes and others. A very relaxful, fun weekend with all our friends in the antique airplane community. Our daughter, Melanie even stayed with us!
My friend George Willford sent me this picture taken by his son. I was flaring to land in the sunset in the Kelch Stearman C3B. What a great photo!
Besides all that fun, the fuselage is painted. It wasn't without some difficulties, though. The silver color went on great. 2 full cross-coats were all that were required since I was spraying over the silver Rand-O-Fill. Very happy with the finish.
The red trim was another issue. I ordered the red butyrate from Wag Aero - they are close to me and I can drive and get it. When I went to spray this stuff, it was so translucent it would not even begin to cover. They sent me another gallon out free of charge, and it was OK. But, this meant totally unmasking the airplane so the tape lines would not show while I waited on the paint, and low humidity days to spray it.
Here are some pics of the process:
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| Using original photos to lay out the graphics |
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| All taped off, ready for paint |
I'm fortunate to have original photos of the airplane that I could use to lay out the graphics. This made it easy to duplicate the trim and put it precisely where it was originally.
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| A coat of white blown on to make the red cover easier |
The trim is pretty simple, so it didn't take long to tape everything off.
What I like to do at this stage, is blow a little paint along the tape edge - the same color outside the tape lines. In this case, silver. This guarantees anything that bleeds under the tape will not be visible. Tape bleed on fabric can happen easily on pinked edges of the surface tape, and even the texture of the fabric.
Bright colors like yellow or red also cover better over white. So I sprayed on a good cross-coat of white
After my red fiasco was fixed, the final result came out nice. Here it is all unmasked and ready for final assembly. The trim is a dark red. You can see the difference from the Tennessee (insignia) red on my Funk in the background.
The tail surfaces are going into the paint booth next, but first, I wanted to get the gear legs sprayed. I have new wire wheels being made now, and once those are done the airplane can be put on the gear.
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| Gear legs |
I had to make a few repairs to the gear legs as a result of the original accident, but overall they were in great shape. Here they are all blasted and ready for epoxy primer. These will be painted the same red as the fuselage trim. I'll use enamel on these, a paint similar to what was originally sprayed on them.
The next post should show some painted gear legs and finished tail surfaces - assuming we have some nice low humidity days to spray. Stay tuned!
