Painting

My new DeVilbiss Finishline 4 spray gun arrived today, perfect timing. After cleaning it, setting it up, it was ready to paint. I mixed up some paint and began spraying. The gun worked perfect, very nice. It will take a while to get proficient with it, but I have a lot of small parts to practice on before getting to the larger more prominent cowling, fuselage and slats.

Do to a crappy old Craftsman spray gun, I had to repaint the rudder pedal hoops because of uneven paint and runs. After they dried overnight, I sanded the runs down and evened up the surface. Once sanded I cleaned them up and hung them on wire hangars ready to be sprayed again. Fortunately, I had the new gun. Here they are after I brought them in for the night.

I took the flap handle apart and removed the three plates that were not painted. I scuffed, cleaned and hung them for spraying.

After spraying a couple of coats of paint on the parts, I set about mounting the rudder pedals in the fuselage. I had to drill out the rivets I set in the pedals to hold everything in place while painting. After removing the rivets everything moved smoothly but the mounting rings scratched up some paint. After mounting them I touched them up.

The hoops have a tube that inserts in them and the rudder pedal assembly to hold the hoops on. These tubes have a tab on one end that needs to be painted. So, I taped off the tube itself leaving the tab exposed on each one (four total), sprayed them and set them aside to dry.

I had some paint leftover in the gun and didn't want to waste it so I began looking for something else to paint. I came up with the under seat storage bins. These were already upholstered with fabric so I didn't want to spray them, I decided to just brush on the paint as they wouldn't be seen anyway once installed. This is on the bottom and sides and is more about corrosion control than looks.

Next, I gathered up everything needed to mount the Garmin Pitch servo (tray, nuts, bolts, washers, servo, adel clamps and push rod) so I could weigh it. The installed weight of the pitch servo is 2.98lbs. After weighing, I mounted it back into the fuselage, hopefully for the last time. Once everything was tightened down, I torque sealed all the nuts to signify final assembly. The torque seal is used to tell if a nut has moved, come loose, since applying the torque seal. It will crack if moved so it makes it easy to tell if something is coming loose.

On to the ELT, I again gathered up all the components (tray, nuts, bolts, washers, screws, ELT, bracket, alarm, antenna and coax) so I could weigh them all. The installed weight of the ELT is 2.40lbs. I'll mount this all up tomorrow.