Body work: can it wait?

I'm finishing up my RV-10 and am at the point where I need to do the finish work on the fiberglass areas. I've already decided that we're going to paint it about a year after we've been flying. I'd rather not spend a bunch of time on finish work now, so two concerns:

• Am I going to make it more difficult to finish/paint later by not doing it now? I figure if I coat everything with epoxy, it'll stay protected. The builder manual seems to suggest this as well.
• Can I have the paint shop finish it later? I realize more prep work means more money, but am wondering if doing things like blending the windows into the fiberglass is something most paint shops would typically be willing to do. At this point, I'm willing to pay extra to not have to do it myself (and probably end up with a better result).

Thoughts?

Thanks...

-Rob

I think I would want at least a UV inhibiting primer over all the glass.

tcone1 said:

I think I would want at least a UV inhibiting primer over all the glass.

Click to expand...

Yep.

I am also at the same stage, gonna be spraying the primer next week.

Sure you can fly unfinished, but why? Suck it up and do it right. The world already has enough ugly half-finished homebuilt airplanes.

Natural beauty

I don't know. As a non-RV owner, it was the sight of a shiny unfinished RV that caught my eye and got me interested.

But then I have always been a sucker for aircraft aluminum. When I was a camper, I thought a polished airstream was the most beautiful thing on wheels.

The unfinished fiberglass is sort of dimpy.

Circular logic??

DanH said:

Sure you can fly unfinished, but why?

Click to expand...

1. Money.

2. Time.

3. Want to be sure everything with the airframe is the way I want it before painting----and the only way to do that is to fly it.

4. Wife says NO to painting at home---"I want a professional paint job"-----and that leads back to #1

I hear you Mike. Not everybody can paint at home and sometimes you must fly it to the paint shop. However, let's not confuse unpainted with unfinished.

DanH said:

Sure you can fly unfinished, but why? Suck it up and do it right. The world already has enough ugly half-finished homebuilt airplanes.

Click to expand...

I hear you Mike. Not everybody can paint at home and sometimes you must fly it to the paint shop. However, let's not confuse unpainted with unfinished.

Click to expand...

Besides, how will I know if I'm done if I don't take it all the way to paint. During my build several times I thought "hey that piece is done" only to find out since I started painting that No that piece was not done!

I wanted many specific items in my plane, like nice seats, FI, C/S prop, AND Paint. Also I couldn't afford to fly first and then fly off to Texas or elsewhere to have it painted. But I could afford to do it here as the parts head to the airport.....hope to start fusleage paint next week.