Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Painting Complete

After a couple months the plane is now painted. The final stretch for final assembly and airworthiness inspection is insight. The painting took about the time I expected - at least 8 weeks or better. It was a side job for my painter so he fit it in when he could. That coupled with more rain than expected added up to nearly 12 weeks. But it's done now and it looks great. I went down to the shop to approve the layout but really Jaun is the artist and he had a vision. Can't wait to start putting it all together and fire it up. In the time the plane was away I took a small break - it's been 4+ years that I've really focused at on working on this project and the break felt good. I'm a little behind on what I had hoped to accomplish during it's absents but it will all get done at some point. I'm nearly finished with the tank and just need to seal the top of it along with a few nutplates on the filler tube. I've ordered some carbon fiber vinyl for the panel. I had painted it gloss black but it just isn't worth the effort as I have to redo two of the three panels and gloss black is the absolute hardest to work with.



The white did a good job of hiding the bulkheads in the skin. Nearly every RV12 I've seen has this. Vans says it due to the thin skins.