With my recent decision to paint the wings, I was back to figuring out just how to mount them prior to painting.  You see, unlike hitting the wings with primer, one side at a time, when it comes to painting it needs to be done all at once.  Although my painting skills, the weather and the environment rarely meet the quality of a skilled painter inside of a paint booth.

Some builders, like Shane Banquer, have made wing stands that they have shared pics of with me… both wings mounted with the leading edges either up or down, and on a roll around dolly.  Probably good if at an airport to roll them out of the hangar, paint them and then back in for cure.  But if I were to make one it would most likely be stationary… and I thought about doing that… but that’s a lot of work.

Seemed much easier to just mount the wing on the CS spar/strake, protect the strakes, gear, fuselage, nose . . .  see where I’m getting to.  After I started taping and covering everything up, I realized what a HUGE job (and PITA) it was going to be just to cover up everything on the strakes, fuselage, nose, etc. just to paint the wings.

After some pondering and a bit of measuring I decided to make a fairly quick wing painting mount that I could use for both wings, for about $20.

What would I need to buy?  Well, one 16-foot long 2×8.

I then trimmed one end to match the wing/CS spar mating shape and determined where the bolt holes needed to go, and drilled those.

My mounting location for the my new temporary ‘centersection spar’ fill-in wasn’t perfect, being over grass and all, but at this point with the days getting shorter and weather getting colder daily, I need to get a move on it.

Here is the wing mounted to the 2×8, which in turn is mounted to my above ground pool deck railing….

which you can see in these pics here,

and here.

Clearly enough room for me to get up under the wing and paint it (note the blue and black winglet accent stripes taped up).

My late night operation was getting the 10′ x 20′ carport/canopy assembled to keep any moisture off the wing while it was curing.  I failed to get a pic of the finished canopy over the wing.

I started painting the wing the following day, and after wet sanding the underside, and cleaning/degreasing, final prep, and tape up, some spot shooting sealer coat, and two coats of white paint, I finished about 2:30 in the afternoon.  The weather temp was in the high 60’s during the afternoon and started cooling quickly by mid-evening.  The coldest forecasted temp was at 7am the following morning at 50° F.

Since this Nason paint can be shot anywhere above 50° F, I wasn’t worried about the temp, and I had the canopy over the wing for any moisture.

OR so I thought.

The paint turned out REALLY well.  I had a few bugs after the first round, that I extracted successfully.  And then maybe a few very small aphids after the second and final coat.  I didn’t have a super glossy coat (but acceptably shiny), and therefore NO runs, but it was a solid outing.

I left for Jess’s place a little after 11 pm and everything was looking good.  Temp was about 58° and the paint still looked very nice.

But I’ve realized something about our foam filled aircraft components: they attract moisture… dew to be exact.  While everything else in the vicinity can be bone dry, the wings outside will be wet with dew.  I mistakenly thought if I had the wing under a canopy, completely covered, with it having already cured for over 8 hours, that the paint would be fine.

I was wrong.

This shot of the inboard winglet is typical for how the rest of wing paint job looked when I left last night.

But when I arrived this morning, the center top section of the wing was covered in dew, a few inches in from all edges. It’s hard to tell by looking at the actual wing trailing edge on the left, so focus just forward of the aileron cutout center right of pic.  See how shiny it is along the edge?  And how dull it is in the center?  It still looks like it has a coat of dew on it, even though it’s completely dry.

In talking with the paint guy at NAPA he told me about a guy down the highway from them that is reportedly an export in buffing out just about any paint, including single stage.  With this latest fun fiasco, I will be giving him a call to see if he can bring this dull, dew-damaged center wing area paint (and every other spot) back to life: nice and shiny.

Regardless, here is a requisite shot of my painted wing.  I am happy that it’s done, but clearly my frustration factor of playing constant Johnny-F***-Around with all this paint stuff is high.

Anyhoo … still pressing forward, even with all the BS that keeps popping up!

Today I removed the tape, plastic and paper from the winglets to reveal the black accent stripes, here on the outboard of the left winglet (pic 1) and the inboard side of the right winglet (pic 2).

And the opposite in these pics below, with the inboard of the left winglet (pic 1) and the outboard side of the right winglet (pic 2).

I then got to work on placing and drilling the right rudder gust lock.  I placed the pin inside the hole for this pic.

I then prepped the brass securing pin sleeve (pic 1), and then a shot of the pin inserted into the sleeve (pic 2).

I then micro’d the sleeve into the just-drilled hole and left it to cure.

I then moved the right wing outside, and using a cheap can of black spray paint covered the top surface as a guide coat (pic 1).

I then did a few rounds of sanding, and after finishing I had a few depressions in the top wing surface… more than I of course would care to.

After some more prep, I then shot the depression areas with 3 coats of hi-build 2K primer.

I grabbed this shot just to show the winglet paint scheme in combo with the fuselage… not bad (smile).

And more of a “secret” project that I’ve been working for over a year… this is a non-GRT magnetometer that I’m assessing its mounting position in conjunction with the two GRT magnetometers.

I’m hoping the weather is good for the next day or two to allow me to paint the right wing.

Today I was able to successfully get the black accent stripes on the winglets painted.

Here we have the right winglet black accent stripes painted . . .

And the left winglet’s.

On Marco’s trip to this year’s Rough River fly-in (I didn’t go in order to get this bird done ASAP) he tested out using the Starlink Mini system to have full-time/real-time Internet in flight primarily for optimized weather reports.  Obviously Marco needed to place the antenna somewhere, and for his implementation he settled on using the left strake baggage compartment.

To plan this capability, Marco created a CAD model to test out his deployment.  Thankfully he sent me the CAD file, which I was able to split up to print on my only operational 3D printer at the moment (too small to print it out in full).

When I get a chance I will assess where I can fit this antenna in my bird.  The left strake is a no-go for me since the outer skin is covered with a ply of carbon fiber, so I will look at other options.

Tomorrow I’ll pull the tape off the winglets and start prepping the wings for final white paint.

I spent most of the day today prepping and working on finalizing the application of hi-temp RTV to the edges of the CS spar “outriggers” that are exposed to engine compartment heat . . .

And also around the adjacent edges of the titanium firewall and the lower firewall corners.

Of course I had to buy more hi-temp RTV, and since the gray was cheaper, nicer looking (IMO) and good up to 1400° F, I went with that.

Also, note on the upper firewall above that I have installed the ElectroAir coil pack, as well as terminated and installed the left side P9 power CPC connector.

Below we have the right side P10 data CPC connector terminated and installed as well.

Finally, after installing the P9 and P10 connectors, I then applied sound-deadening foam on the aft wall of the headrest/forward side of the firewall.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I plan on shooting the black accent stripes on the winglets.

Pressing forward!

Today was all about getting the winglets taped up for the black accent stripes that will border the blue accents on the leading edge and top of each winglet.

But before that, here are some shots of the winglets’ blue accent paint with the tape removed.

First the left side.

And the outboard side of the right winglet.

An inboard angled shot of the right winglet.  Again, accept for one run on the left winglet blue accent, these second rounds of paint came out good.

As you can see, to prep for the black accent stripes, the rudders had to be mounted back into place.  Here is the initial border taping of what will be the black accent stripe on the left winglet.

I wanted the accent stripe fairly thick as to be bold and stand out on the winglets.  I know some will give me grief regarding a bold black stripe on a flying surface, but remember that these winglets are vertical and will experience exponentially less heat because of that than if they were on a horizontal surface.

And here we have the black accent stripe and upper blue accent paint all taped up for painting.  After a bit of additional plastic taped in place to protect the remaining winglet and outboard wing, these will be ready to shoot once the weather is agreeable.

In the meantime I will continue working on finishing up the firewall install and getting firewall components mounted.

Today I got the ruined paint on both winglets sanded down and prepped for another round of paint.

Obviously I kept a constant eye on the weather forecast.

Here’s the left winglet in blue paint, and besides one run, both winglets look good.

My evening task was to get the slot for the RAM air scoop’s lever arm created in the firewall.

To do that I cut off the bottom portion of one of the paper firewall templates and attached it to the firewall.

With everything lined up as good I could get it, I then used the paper template slot holes to drill holes through the titanium firewall.

I the removed the paper template, taped up around the holes and used my Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to create the RAM air can lever slot.

Voila… task complete.

Another task I completed tonight was wet sanding the carbon fiber glare shield on the aft nose/avionics cover before epoxy wiping it with 2 coats of West epoxy.

Still pushing forward . . .

Once again, this post covers the past few days.

First up, a slightly fuzzy pic of the firewall with all the clamps and wedges removed.  Still some fine cleanup work to do, as well as drilling and cutting the slot for the RAM air can’s open/close lever arm.

I then got to work on the winglets to get them prepped for the blue paint swoosh along the leading edge and top of each winglet.  After a final wet sand on each winglet, I then worked the final swoosh design and taped it up.

Both the design and getting all the left and right winglets’ outboard and inboard blue accent swooshes as symmetrical as possible took about 3 hours total.  Note the blue sky with a few clouds in the pic, and no rain forecasted until mid-evening.

Here’s the inboard winglets with the taped up accents.

I had an issue with the gun on my planned second and final coat, apparently the paint gummed up a little in the gun during my wait period between first and second coat.  The second coat shot out dry, and although I put on a good amount, it wasn’t wet at all.  I then had to mix up more paint for a 3rd coat.

My flash time is 30 minutes between coats on the color coats, and this little hitch cost me another 30 minutes before shooting the 3rd and final coat, which after I flushed the gun with lacquer thinner (another slight delay) came out nice and wet.  When I finished shooting the blue paint at a minute before 5 pm, I noticed some darker clouds rolling in, but nothing overly threatening.  I wanted to let the paint cure 20 minutes to get it to “dust dry” before moving one wing into the shop and the other under the carport —both areas prone to dust.

I went into the house to doublecheck the weather on the computer, which said rain was coming at 6pm.  And then went back outside at 5:15pm to get the wings under cover, but it was too late.  The sky had opened up and for over 20 minutes rain poured down.  In hope that the paint may have flashed enough to be ok, I still moved the wings under cover.  But unfortunately it didn’t help.

This is the following day, where as you can see, the rain ruined the paint surface.

Fairly disgusted with faulty weather intel, and apparently bad luck (it only rained for about 30 minutes total… just long enough at the exact time to ruin a good paint job), so I took the next day off from painting (and the ensuing required sanding down all that blue paint) and focused on some other issues… one being a call to EnerSys to discuss both my 12 year old PC680 battery (still acting brand new) and how to recover the PowerSafe SBS J16 battery (much more CCAs) that I bought off Marco a few years back.

EnerSys was very helpful and sent me instructions on how to recover the PowerSafe battery, which I did with the help of the Odyssey PC680.

Tomorrow I’ll get back onto the winglets to sand off the crap paint and reshoot it… WEATHER PERMITTING!

This post covers the last few days…

Starting off, I used the largest pieces of leftover Thermo-Tec heat shield to fill in the center depression on the firewall.

I then traced out the firewall onto my stock of Fiberfrax to create the layer that will cover the entire wood firewall structure, plus an oval to cover the Thermo-Tec in the center depression of the firewall.

I filled any gaps between the Thermo-Tec pieces with red hi-temp RTV before applying it across the entire face of the Thermo-Tec (pic 1).  I then set the Fiberfrax in place and let it cure overnight.

The following day I noted that I still had a significant depression even with the Thermo-Tec and Fiberfrax layers in place, so with a couple remaining large scraps of Fiberfrax, I went ahead and added a final filler layer for this depression… still not completely filling the depression, but good enough to provide an adequate transition.

I had a good bit of errands to run, life administrivia, etc. to knock out, as well as doing some research on other Long-EZ related components like my main battery configuration, brake pedal installation, etc.

Thus the only thing else I got done on the firewall was later in the evening, after the new Fiberfrax was securely in place, I test fitted the new titanium firewall cover.  I’ll admit I missed one hole: the AN3 bolt for the ‘Forrest-of-tabs’ grounding bus inside the hellhole… so I cut that out of the firewall Fiberfrax layer and made a note to buy a 3/16″ cobalt drill bit to make the hole in the firewall the following day….

Which I did.  With ALL the holes accounted for (and created), I then quickly slathered up the original wood/glass firewall with red hi-temp RTV, attached the Fiberfrax layer before then adding more red RTV and setting the titanium firewall in place (which took some fairly creative contortions to get into place).

I then spent nearly 2 hours first getting the titanium firewall set as securely in place as possible with bolts, screws, AN passthrough fittings, throttle/mixture cable securing hardware, etc. before then clamping a piece of wood across the lower engine mount extrusions and wedging the firewall into the underlying fiberfrax (I had meant to get a pic of the Fiberfrax in place, but I was scrambling to get everything mounted before the red RTV cured).

Next came almost an hour of simply cleaning up all the red RTV that was … well, everywhere.  It made a huge mess all over and took a good bit to clean it up.

And with that, another milestone has been met: the titanium firewall and underlying Fiberfrax layer is installed!

Today is a big milestone in this airplane build.

After inputting the few minor tweaks on template #7 I was ready to plasma cut the Titanium firewall overlay out of the 0.02″ thick Titanium sheet I have.

First, I grabbed a collective shot of all the firewall overlay templates that led up to the final configuration for plasma cutting.

Here I’ve got the laptop and plasma cutting table ready for cutting, with the Titanium sheet secured in position.

And here is the Titanium firewall after I plasma cut it.  Not as super clean on the holes as aluminum, but the dross is not much and very acceptable… although minor edge cleaning will be required.

Here’s a quick video I grabbed both during and after I plasma cut the Titanium firewall.  Enjoy!

Pressing forward!