Another Paint Shop Observation.... (safety related)

During an annual condition insp. I did recently on an RV7 that came out of a paint shop about a year ago. It quickly became obvious that the "assembler" didn't read any of my articles on VAF (can you imagine that!).

All the elevator bolts were loose, including the Torque Tube 'Jesus' bolt.
The center bearing had no shims and the bolt was loose (I later found the shims the builder made laying in the bottom of the tailcone).
All the rudder bolts were loose and the wrong length bolts installed (the bottom one is longer than the others).

The paint looked great, but the guy putting the controls back on lacked some basic skills.

Bottom line, most builders know what to look for, if you're not the builder and you have your RV painted have someone inspect the work the paint shop did just to be sure they did it correctly.

Other things to watch for that I have seen:
Blocked Fuel vents, fuel contamination
Blocked pitot/static ports
Trim system, not hooked up or wired incorrectly
Canopy bolts missing/loose

Walt said:

During an annual condition insp. I did recently on an RV7 that came out of a paint shop about a year ago. It quickly became obvious that the "assembler" didn't read any of my articles on VAF (can you imagine that!).

All the elevator bolts were loose, including the Torque Tube 'Jesus' bolt.
The center bearing had no shims and the bolt was loose (I later found the shims the builder made laying in the bottom of the tailcone).
All the rudder bolts were loose and the wrong length bolts installed (the bottom one is longer than the others).

The paint looked great, but the guy putting the controls back on lacked some basic skills.

Bottom line, most builders know what to look for, if you're not the builder and you have your RV painted have someone inspect the work the paint shop did just to be sure they did it correctly.

Other things to watch for:
Blocked Fuel vents, fuel contamination
Trim system, not hooked up or wired incorrectly
Canopy bolts missing/loose

Click to expand...

I had a similar experience with my paint shop - the paint looked great but I ended up removing and completely reinstalling the elevators and rudder to get them right again.

If I ever do it again, I'll make sure I work a deal with the paint shop where I am the one doing the R/R of the control surfaces.

Do it yourself !!!

Had mine painted at ArtCraft in Santa Maria CA. Yes I flew it from GA just to have it painted. 3 of us RV builders spent an hour and a half removing all control surfaces. After paint done, excellent job by the way, 2 of us spent 6 hours reattaching all surfaces as they were supposed to be correctly. We had taken pictures of the bolt assemblies to ensure each went back as originally assembled. No issues and totally happy.

And if the paint shop stripped/pressure-washed your landing gear be sure to repack your wheel bearings before moving the aircraft. Had this problem with two aircraft at two different paint shops over the years.

Lancaster Aero at Smoketown PA did mine and when I picked her up it was perfect. I had taken pictures of all the hinge points of all the surfaces beforehand so I could quickly make comparisons. You definitely want to check even from reputable shops as anyone can miss something with work as extensive as a paint job.

Timely post for me as I will be getting a paint job soon. I'm planning to leave all rod ends (elevator and rudder/VS) and jam nuts in place and having the shop mask off the bearings - is that the right way to go?

I intend to remove and re-install everything myself.

Thread subject is the reason why I negotiated to do the dis/re assembly. I had heard too many horror stories of badly reassembled aircraft.

Dolly and I required one long day to disassemble and three shorter days to put the plane back together. We put screws back to keep paint out of nutplates. On reassembly we used mostly new hardware. I, as others, took photos of hinge joints before taking them apart. This was particularly helpful in putting the ailerons back on. The fosters crew was careful to mask all exposed bearings.