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springcanyon

Member
Hi All,

All my structure behing the instrument panel is temporarily in place and it's time to decide what to paint or what not to paint in the cockpit. My feeling is that if I can't see it, it doesn't need to be painted. Paint adds weight and I'm sure this airplane will never see corosion in my lifetime! I did, however, prime inside the flying surfaces. I invite opinions on this.

Does anyone have any reason to add sound deadening material to the cockpit area? I'm thinking, "no," as we all wear headsets and more than likely the ANR type.

One more issue that should be addressed at this point is thermal insulation of the cockpit area. I'm leaning toward a "yes" on this issue. My thinking is that sitting next to bare aluminum during cold weather conditions is going to be uncomfortable on a long flight - warm feet, cold shoulder! Once again, opinions? :confused:

Thanks much,
Don Owens
 
My answer would be to paint a little more than you plan to leave uncovered. That way there are no unpainted areas showing after you install covering.

Paint doesn't weigh that much. A couple of ozs, maybe. If you are concerned about the weight of the paint on the inside you wear light shoes when you fly or even leave one sock at home :) :D :p
 
insulation and interior paint

Don,

I wrestled with this for awhile too. I finally decided that simple, cheap, and ease of touch-up maintenance were the way to go for my particular situation.

I used Spray cans of flat rustoleum for the interior pieces that would not receive any kind of interior covering. I fly in Ohio and I can tell you that the addition of 3/4 and 1/2 inch close cell insulating foam on the floor under my Home depot gray carpet, and around the entire foot well forward fuse area has made a huge difference in sound deadening and warmth. One of the nicest additions to my insulating scheme has been to order the aileron pushrod seals from abby at flightline interiors (approx $19)

The sky is the limit on the interior though. There are some really cool prefabbed panels and stuff out there but you will have to pay for it.

Look at Sam's site for some really nice cost effective interior ideas. Looks good, cheap. I used foam board behind my side panel fabric for insulation and sound deadening. (available from Staples)

http://home.hiwaay.net/~sbuc/journal/interior.html

Blue skies!

Jeff
 
Interior covering

Jeff,

Thanks for the input - very helpful! I have a set of the boots you mentioned and was trying to decide if it was worthwhile to install them. From your comment I will go ahead and put them in. I hesitated because I had decided to run strobe cables through the same opening.

Thanks,
Don Owens
 
I left everything natural AL that was below the longerons, except the heater cover and painted the aft upper skin in front of the baggage compt closeout bulkhead, canopy frame and panel. The lower parts were covered with close cell foam wrapped in fabric or carpet. Was easy, looks nice and finished and all the parts exposed to wear have no paint to rub off.

Roberta
 
Practice

Well, I went the other direction for a few reasons. I painted the entire interior, top to bottom, with ppg epoxy primer and dcc acrylic urethane. My #1 reason... I wanted to see if I'd be able to paint the exterior myself. I have not done any real spray painting before so I figured this would not only be good practice, but a chance to see if i would want to (or should) paint the exterior myself.

It was a *ton* of work (a lot of it learning and redoing parts). I removed everything I could that had already been installed. control cables, floors, flap tube, etc (I have not plumbed or wired it yet). I have the QB, so I had to also clean it well. I first practiced on all the removable pices such as the side panels and floors. I shot the fuse last.

I'm very happy I did it. I learned a lot. Took some time to figure out how to get a nice surface w/o runs, grainy, dust or a lot of orange peel. Also had to learn how to fix these problems :) But now I feel I can do a decent job painting. Even more importanly, I found out that I liked it! It takes a lot of prep work and patience, but the end result is awsome! It's the final touch to make your hard work assembling the part shine.

With all this paint, I'll probibly need a bigger engine and a longer runway to get this fat pig off the ground :)
 
Abby's Pushrod Boots

I bought the boots from Abby, too. I ended up making the nutplated rings from .025 T3, having tried lighter stuff. I also had to make a different template. I wanted to allow room for the screw heads not touching the flange around the hole on the inside, so I drilled from inside toward outside and made template to fit. I used angled nutplates to keep the contours as small as practical. Since the picture, I drilled a 3/4" hole for the wires to avoid cutting into the boot material.
IMG_2829.jpg
 
insulation issues - more

Don,

I forgot to mention that if you are building a tip up, you will need to seal the canopy to fuse area at the sides. If you don't the negative pressure created by the slip stream will "suck in" the cold air from the tail cone, flap pushrod holes, wing root areas, etc.

My hangar mate (who flies a -6A tip up) and I used simple Ace hardware black weatherstrip foam (approx 5/16 x 5/16) to seal the area. Makes a world of difference and cuts wind noise drastically. I will switch this to a more durable rubber weatherstrip when I take the time to find the right application.

Once you seal the canopy it the one muff heat system does an ok job.

Also, if you do fly a tip up... DON'T start the engine with the canopy partially opened as the Plexi will shake from side to side on start up and hit the roll bar very hard. My hangar neighbor cacked his canopy last January doing this.
 
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