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  #11  
Old 09-03-2012, 06:23 AM
JakeLewis22 JakeLewis22 is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Posts: 212
Default Thanks!

Thank you for the congratulations, compliments and well wishes. As I said before, the VAF community can take some of the credit. There were countless times I came to the search function on this site unsure of how to proceed and discovered that many builders before me had encountered the same exact problem. That's the advantage of having nearly 8,000 builders ahead of you.

Since I'm passing out thank you's, I'd like to publicly thank my son Nick. About 4 years ago we had plans to go out to dinner and I had about 30 minutes to kill so I picked up the air drill and started match drilling a wing skin. When he arrived he made the mistake of saying "I'm not that hungry yet, do you need any help?" He ended up drilling and deburring about half the holes on the airplane and operating the rivet gun on almost every "shot" rivet. Thanks Nick!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ColoCardinal View Post
SWEET!
I may steal that paint scheme; love it!
Feel free to steal it, I stole it from a red & white RV-7.

For those of you thinking about painting your own airplane:
Painting was without a doubt the most physically demanding step in the process. I didn't realize how physically demanding it was until the morning after the first day of painting when I could barely get out of bed. I also underestimated how much time and work goes into masking off a multicolor paint scheme. BUT, it was also one of the most rewarding parts of the build.
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Jake Lewis
RV7 - N223J
"First Flight September 1, 2012"
www.photobucket.com/jakelewis22[/size]
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  #12  
Old 09-03-2012, 07:57 AM
KCBerner's Avatar
KCBerner KCBerner is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Burleson, TX
Posts: 270
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ColoCardinal View Post
SWEET!
I may steal that paint scheme; love it!
Ditto. Adding it to my bookmarks folder of "Paint Jobs I Like". Beautiful.

Congrats
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RV-14A #140026
Wings 70%. Emp 70%
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  #13  
Old 09-03-2012, 12:13 PM
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BSwayze BSwayze is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Molalla, Oregon
Posts: 955
Default

BEAUTIFUL job, Jake! I'm contemplating painting mine, too. I'd really like to have it done before it flies. Do you have any notes or build log online anywhere? More pics, especially of the painting process you went through? What kind of paint did you use? Base coat, clear coat?

Have fun flying, you've done such a beautiful job!
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Bruce Swayze
RV-7A Standard Build
First flight November 3, 2019!
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  #14  
Old 09-03-2012, 12:30 PM
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GAHco GAHco is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Paso Robles, CA
Posts: 1,177
Default Awesome ! ! !

All those pictures on your picture site that you shared with me, came together very nicely!

Congratulations and have FUN
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28th Anniversary of GAHco March, 2012
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  #15  
Old 09-03-2012, 07:21 PM
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panhandler1956 panhandler1956 is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Ohio
Posts: 1,686
Default Congrats!

Great job! Congratulations and good luck with phase 1. Sure is a pretty airplane!
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Columbus, OH
RV-8 'Contrary Mary' flying
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  #16  
Old 09-03-2012, 10:58 PM
JakeLewis22 JakeLewis22 is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Posts: 212
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BSwayze View Post
BEAUTIFUL job, Jake! I'm contemplating painting mine, too. I'd really like to have it done before it flies. Do you have any notes or build log online anywhere? More pics, especially of the painting process you went through? What kind of paint did you use? Base coat, clear coat?

Have fun flying, you've done such a beautiful job!
Hi Bruce,

I agree, I wanted the airplane to be finished before it flew.

I started out posting pictures to photobucket so my brother could keep track of my progress and it turned into a quasi builder log. Click on the link under my signature below. The pictures are organized by date and the painting pictures run between 2012/05/05 and 2012/07/18. If you click on the thumbnail pics they'll enlarge and you'll be able to see captions under most of the pictures.

An auto painter friend recommended I use BASF's RM Diamont base coat, clear coat. He also offered the use of a spray booth at an auto body shop on the weekends. I contacted BASF's tech line and they confirmed it would be good for an aluminum airplane and recommended the best primmer to use (EP569 Chromate Free Epoxy Primer). They also emailed me spec sheets for using Diamont on aluminum aircraft.

My friend coached me through the first few parts and then I was on my own. There were no surprises with the paint but as I said before, I underestimated the time needed for masking.

It worked out best to apply the primer Saturday morning and spray the white Saturday afternoon. I'd leave the white parts in the booth to dry overnight and start masking the 3 color pattern around 8 am on Sunday morning. The masking would take all morning and I usually wasn't spraying the gray until early afternoon. When the gray was dry (30-45 min) I'd mask it off and spray the black. Then mask off the black and spray the blue. After another 30 minutes for the blue to dry all the masking came off and I'd shoot the clear. The base colors are flat so they dry pretty quick but I found it was best to let the clear dry overnight before handling or I'd end up with finger prints. Once again I'd leave the parts in the booth overnight and pick them up Monday morning on my way to work, before the body shop opened.

After six weekends of that I was wiped out.
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Jake Lewis
RV7 - N223J
"First Flight September 1, 2012"
www.photobucket.com/jakelewis22[/size]
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