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Shiny new paint!

rightrudder

Well Known Member
No more pink cowl comments! I'm really happy with the results. Two-part epoxy primer, three coats of Valspar polyurethane (Mazda NU Vintage Red, Nissan KL2 Silver Metallic, not sure about the black) and Acry-Glo clear coat. Took about six weeks at Century Aircraft Painting at Chino.

This afternoon, I took the first flight in the newly painted machine (other than the quick hop from Chino to Cable). A very serene sunset flight, 1.2 hours on the Hobbs...neat to see those orange-ish hues from the setting sun reflecting off the silver wings.










 
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Nice!

Looks great Doug! How exciting it must be to see a drawing (dream) turn into reality!

Did they clear coat the whole thing or just some of the trim?

I was going to say---now you have finished your plane-----but nobody I know says they have ever "finished" one.:D


Oooh, matching Catto prop makes it even better.
 
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Great work

WOW again....
Nice work......good detail.
Sharp looking.

I too would like to know more about the paint choice.
Is it single stage with clear on top? or a base coat/ clear?
 
Thanks, guys! The whole thing is clear coated, as far as I know. Not quite a show-quality paint job, but darn close! Having assisted the paint shop with many of the details and seeing the painting process up close, I have HUGE respect for all you guys who have done it yourselves.

Bob, there was a white base coat required for the red. Dunno about the silver, but I can find out.

I stole the idea of the the varying-width accent stripe from the RV-7 on the Van's site. Sorta like the stripe in the Coca-Cola logo....wide, narrow, wide.

Inititally I was on the fence about the checkerboard rudder, but I'm glad I went with it. The lead painter there, Sergio, knocked it out of the park with the masking.
 
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Hi Doug,

Wow, the paint looks great!!! Kind of reminds me of the recent McLaren F1 car paint schemes...but your ride is faster (at least until the team finally gets their act together) ;)

Congratulations!
 
Thanks, guys! You're too kind!

It's my own design. I did some pencil sketches on 3-view drawings I downloaded off the Van's site. Getting the right curve/thickness of the stripe was the hard part...I roughly laid out the stripe myself, then the painter went back and smoothed out the curve with the final mask. It's really hard to get the perfect, smooth curve, but we did pretty good.

I might add some red/black vinyl graphics to the wheel pants later, but right now I think they look good in solid silver.
 
Looks great!

Good job Doug. Now you need to head north and hang out for a few days! Let me know when you have some free time.
 
Looks great, Doug! Now I've got to get mine painted. I don't know if I can take six weeks without flying. :D

Have you made it over to Catalina yet? Let's plan a lunch flight.
 
Haven't done Catalina yet, so I'm down with the lunch run idea! Flew to Hemet today for the first time....the restaurant on the field is quite good!
 
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