Steps

[Capflyer]

Just wondering what those that have gone before me have done to prepare the steps that has worked? I do not plan on painting the plane for a while and want to be sure that whatever I do to prepare them accomplishes three things. First to provide protection from rust. Second to not hamper a future paint job, and three to be able to paint them some color now. Any thoughts?

[Davepar]

I followed Walter's lead and had them powder-coated. I chose a matt black finish so they would blend into whatever future paint job I end up with. I found a shop locally that does huge power coating jobs. They threw the steps into one of their other batches for a reasonable fee.

[Rick_A]

I also intend to have my plane professionally painted after it's been flying for a while - which is a year or 2 away, so I also wanted rust protection and something that was easy to re-do in the future. I cleaned the metal with a phosphoric acid product prior to painting. I primed the whole thing with Rustoleum clean metal primer and painted the exterior with regular Rustoleum. I removed the primer from the back of the plate that mates to the skin and used Pro-Seal between the plate and the skin. I also Pro-sealed an 032" doubler plate on the inside of the skin. In the course of cleaning up the Pro-Seal, I discovered the MEK works wonders on removing Rustoleum.