Finally painted after 2+ years flying

[OneCharlieKilo]

After a little over 2 years flying and about 195 hours, my RV-6A is finally painted! Brought her "home" from T&P AeroRefinishers paint shop in Salinas (KSNS), CA today and am very happy with the paint job. Definitely highly recommend Juan and his crew at T&P.

I put some pictures at a couple interim steps in the paint process on my web site at:

http://rv6aproject.ckhand.com/PaintJob/PaintJobPg1.htm

And here are the final results:



Close up of wingtip design (same on top and bottom):

[Michael White]

Chris,
Kudos to Juan and his crew. It looks great!

[N8RV]

Looks like a beauty, Chris! A real head-turner. Congrats!

[Geico266]

Very pretty! Well thought out.

[holbrog]

Looks really sharp, Chris.

Would you be willing to share the type of paint and the color description of the Red used?

Congrats and thanks.

[Mel]

Very nice. Don't forget, you're due a new weight & balance now. Empty will increase and C/G will move aft.

[jbDC9]

Wow, that's pretty. Simple, clean and tidy. Nice. Did I read your web page correctly when you mentioned you went from a white base coat to reassemble and fly home in a week?? That's quick!

Originally Posted by OneCharlieKilo

After a little over 2 years flying and about 195 hours, my RV-6A is finally painted!

I gotcha beat there though; flew mine for almost 4 years and 750 hours before heading to the paint shop.

[ao.frog]

.... a REALLY nice scheme! And a very nice choice of colours too! That -6 will be a real "head-turner" from now on!

In fact it gave me some ideas for the paintscheme for our next -7...

[Noah]

Beautiful airplane, nice job. Do you have any regrets waiting for two years before painting? Would you do it the same way again???

[OneCharlieKilo]

Thanks for all the positive comments. Like I said before, I'm really happy with it.
Answers to some of the questions are below.

Would you be willing to share the type of paint and the color description of the Red used?

Certainly. Here's what T&P gave me for color data:

Base color: 570-535 Mattehorn white Jet Glo - Sherwin Williams
Red: RS911F Red - DuPont
Black: G9009S Black - DuPont
Clear coat (only applied to red and black): G2-7779S - DuPont

Don't forget, you're due a new weight & balance now. Empty will increase and C/G will move aft.

Yes, thanks for the reminder Mel; already done! I wanted to try and get close to exact weight of the paint job so re-did W&B a week before going into the paint shop and then again when complete. Results:

Before: EW = 1,087 lbs, empty CG = 67.2"
After: EW = 1,103 lbs, empty CG = 68.1"

I was expecting a little more on weight increase based on others that were painted at same place, but that's what it measured using same scales (car scales from EAA Chapter "tool crib").
I'm planning a change from Sensenich to Catto prop that should get me the paint weight gain back as long as CG shift is acceptable enough that I don't need a weighted crush plate up front.

Did I read your web page correctly when you mentioned you went from a white base coat to reassemble and fly home in a week?? That's quick!

Yes on both counts! Worked weekends....we did that taping in the web site pictures on Saturday, the black went on Monday, red & clearcoat on Tuesday, then clean up and putting together through Saturday. T&P doesn't do disassembly/reassembly on experimentals so I did that work along with a lot of help from my RV-4 owner hangar-mate. That policy can be viewed as good or bad depending on your perspective - I preferred putting it back together myself to inspecting it after someone else did that, and taking it apart doesn't take all that long (4 hrs compared to 24+ going back together in my case).

Do you have any regrets waiting for two years before painting? Would you do it the same way again???

No regrets. If I were doing it again and had funds for paint saved up already, I would paint shortly after Phase I rather than waiting 2 years, but for me I found enough little changes I wanted to make that I'm sure I would have messed up a nice paint job if I had done it sooner.
Can do it either way, it's a personal preference really.