I started off today by wet sanding with 500 grit on the third/final white primer coat of the landing gear legs. Once I finished with the sanding and cleaning up the gear legs, I pulled all the painters and duct tape from around and underneath the landing gear fairings to ensure nothing surreptitious was occurring under the tape.

I also wanted to get a shot of the gear legs & fairings sans tape.

Also note the 3 minor fills on the aft side of the bottom strake surface.  I used Metal Glaze here simply because I wanted to get this white paint repainted today and not wait for a full cure cycle with West 410.  In fact, these fills are so minimal that I didn’t even recoat them with primer… and again, that would be another wait time infused into the cycle.

Another couple shots of the sanded primer on the gear legs and the removed tape around the gear fairings.

I then spent well over an hour designing and taping up the gear legs to create a black accent swoosh towards the top of the gear fairings, swooping down the aft side of the gear… on each side of course.

They aren’t perfect or 100% symmetrical, but they’re pretty darn close and I think they’ll look just fine for all the “normal” people (if you don’t feel you fall in this latter category, you know who you are!! <wink>)

After taping up the gear legs and around the gear fairings, I then whipped up a small batch of black paint and applied it to the taped off swoosh/fairing area.

Yet another shot of the black swooshes at the top of the gear legs and gear fairings.  I will most likely incorporate my new standard for paint coats, which is 2 coats applied, then sand 600 grit with a final coat after that.

So 2 more coats to be applied to these swooshes.  I can tell already, especially with black paint over white primer, that this first coat really is just a prep base coat.  The next coat will help clean up some minor blemishes I already see… then of course the third/final coat will polish it all off.

About an hour later I got started on white paint coat #2 on the bottom nose, fuselage, and strakes.

Again, I’m following the 2 coats + 600 grit sand + final coat paint schedule with this white paint as well.  This is the result of the discussion I had with Jason at Epifanes.

One last shot of the bottom nose, fuselage, and strakes white paint coat #2.  I’ll note that following Jason’s advice this last couple of rounds of paint have been much, much better than what I was producing before.

The remaining tally for the paint prior to re-flipping the bird back upright is another coat of white and another couple coats of black on the top of the gear legs.

After the paint is applied, and with at least a few days of cure time, I will then be wet sanding, buffing and polishing out all the bottom paint surfaces.