Paint touch-ups - 5 hours

 I needed to touch up the interior cabin side rail. While polishing the paint I rubbed some of the corners down to much exposing the aluminum. So, I masked off the interior to isolate the right side side rail, re-prepped and re-painted the side rail. As I have a can of paint all mixed. I ended up sanding and spraying a couple pieces again.

Completed painting of the interior and removed masking tape - 5 hours

 Finally finished the interior paint. Then came the very long task of removing the all the masking tape. I'm quite happy on how to turned out.

Finish prep and painted the interior cabin area - 10 hours

 Huge long day on the build today. I finished masking off the firewall area of the fuselage.

The cabin area is ready to paint. Before I did that, I wiped all of the interior down with Acetone and then did a final spray of epoxy primer. This allows for all exposed rivet heads to have a coat of primer

After a couple of hours the final 2K single stage paint is ready to spray. The air is calm and warm...its a perfect day to paint. 

 

Starting prep for interior cabin paint - 4 hours

 One item that is high on the to-do list is to finish the painting of the interior cabin area. The temperatures are starting to fall as we approach fall,and I plan on painting outdoors. I need to get into it. 

For my particular build...I've help off final paint until after assembly. That means I need to mask off a lot of components. ...So much masking tape.

Re-paint - 2 hours

So very interesting...My first small batch of paint didn’t mix right and the paint never really dried. I think when I depressed the underside of the 2K can it wasn't good enough. Only affected a handful of parts. Since the paint didn’t set correctly, it easily wipes off with acetone (epoxy primer stayed completely in-tact). After a little be of re-prep. I re-sprayed a handful of parts and things are looking very good. 

 

 

Painting Day! - 4 hours

 Well the day has finally arrived. I am ready to start painting the interior of the aircraft. For now I will just start painting the pieces first.

I need to give the parts a light coat of epoxy primer (to cover all of the exposed rivets, hardware, etc). Everything got a wipe down with acetone, then a spray with epoxy primer.

After a number of hours, I started to spray parts with a 2K single stage paint. Looks so good.

  Color by the way is a solid medium gray. Not too light, but not too dark (After reading forums and comments…Lots shy away from too dark a paint to keep the interior of plane cool). I jokingly call the color “Filing Cabinet Gray”. I still like it. Think it will look good with dark/black seats, accents and panel. 

Selecting interior cabin paint - 1 hour

 Today I went to the local automotive paint store to pick out some interior paint for the cabin. I really wrestled with what paint to use. I very much side on using rattle cans as they produce decent results and are sooo much easier for cleanup. Question is do I go cheap and get something less durable. Or do I spend more and get something very durable. At one point I went to Canadian Tire and picked up a can of automotive touch up paint and used on a test piece....The result was beautiful paint but it was not durable. It would scratch off fairly easily.

Ultimately I went for durable as priority. So, having previous experience with the Spray Max 2K primers, making the jump to the same manufacturer but with single stage 2K paint. This was my best option in my opinion.

It was recommended to stick with a solid color rather than metallic when using this spray application. Its much easier to get consistent results. Metallic is better suited for other paint/spray applications. I had a small selection of solid colors to choose from.Early on I had narrowed my my paint scheme to a medium gray....not too light, not too dark. So naturally the N0429 Gray was the best option.