J

J5Cub

Active Member
This past weekend I spent just short of $1500 in airline tickets and a hotel to go purchase and fly home an RV8 which had some issues that were not disclosed by the seller :mad: . I would never have thought that I had to ask if there was any corrosion that the seller wasn't telling me about, or cracks on the fuselage (repaired but still not disclosed), or a half dozen other things that I found in a walk around.

Anyway, my question has to do with the canopy frame for future reference. Does the canopy frame come painted from the factory on a quick build kit or do you need to paint it prior to assembly. The frame on the RV8 in question was covered with surface rust and looked to me like it had only been primed and not with epoxy. The builder said that they were painted from Van's and that this was just an example of how poor his kits were.

Thank you in advance for your help.
Greg
 
Virtually all steel parts come powder coated from Van's, and have for several years. The current canopy frame is certainly powder coated. On the other hand, my first RV-8 kit (years ago) did not have any powder coated parts, so the frame could have been coated or not, depending on the age of the kit.

Cheers,
Rusty
 
I agree with Rusty that the QBs come with powder coated steel weldments. I believe that all QBs came this way since you wouldn't be able to get at them for priming or painting after the fact. Older slow builds came with bare steel parts. (For reference, my QB was a '98 kit w/Powder coated parts, but my '94 slow build had bare steel parts.)
Some builders will quickly blame the kits to be of poor quality rather than admit to their poor craftsmanship or carelessness in finishing the plane.
 
Bob Collins said:
Greg: You bought an airplane without inspecting it first?
Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

I went to purchase it based on the owners deceptive description and some photos that did not show the issues. I had a certified check in my pocket for the purchase amount but went home without the plane.

What cost me so much was one way tickets, especially the one coming home which had to be purchased on the weekend. I knew I shouldn't try and buy an airplane outside of driving distance (past experience) but have been having a hard time finding one that meets my needs close by and this guy seemed to be honest. Live and learn.

Greg
 
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