Paint day

My pile of completed and unpainted parts had grown too large, so today was a marathon painting day. I started the day sandblasting the lower door and a few other steel parts. Of course the Harbor Freight pressure blaster gave up half way through and I had to make repairs. Have you ever taken one of these apart?

It is dirt simple, between the two end fittings is a length of flexible tubing and to cut off flow the tube is pinched closed by the handle lever. What happened to mine is the tubing took a "set" this allowed the passing sand/air mixture to abrade a hole in the tube.

Starting today I will store this with the handle lever depressed so the tubing is not under constant pressure. With that fixed I completed cleaning the lower door, control stick and cowl bracket.
They all came out pretty nice, the Hobby Air air supplied respirator makes sandblasting almost a pleasure.

The goal for the day was just to prime the steel parts but I had them ready for paint by noon, so I decided to paint the aluminum parts too. Each of them got an acid wash and a dip in the alodine tank, before being laid out for paint. Here they are ready for paint.

In the end I decided to hang the door, even if it blows around a little it is still easier to paint that way.

Here are the door locking pins I made this week. I hope that spider found a place to hide.

  Here is everything all ready for paint, I'm waiting for the epoxy primer to induct.

On all the panels and covers I painted the back/hidden side first, waited about half hour for the paint to go tack free then turned them over to paint the "good" side. Here they are after painting.

Tomorrow I will paint selected parts Black and White. The door will be allowed to dry a week and then I will start covering. Hopefully I can get this finished before it gets too cold. Right now the weather is perfect, hope it holds. The door will be the last of the fabric work. The red parts will have to wait for the boot cowl to be completed , I only have enough Red Aerothane left for one batch. My little town is completely overrun with people, so this will be a good weekend to hang out in the shop.(with my bud)