Jan 19, 2021     Wings painted, reassembly       Category: Ext Finish

Starboard wing is finally painted and assembling the hardware on them.

  Jan 12, 2021     More wing finishing pictures       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 12, 2021     Sanding stbd wing after pinhole filling       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 12, 2021     Finishing Starboard wing       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 12, 2021     Port Wing Last Primer Coat       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 12, 2021     Starboard Wing Finished       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 02, 2021     Starboard wing fist coat of primer       Category: Ext Finish

  Jan 02, 2021     Port wing filling primer       Category: Ext Finish

  Dec 28, 2020     First Coat of Primer       Category: Ext Finish

Port wing gets first coat of primer. Hundreds of pinholes to fill but is looking good.

  Dec 21, 2020     Wings ready for primer       Category: Ext Finish

The two wings are filled and sanded so ready to start preparing and shooting primer.

  Dec 15, 2020     Progress       Category: Ext Finish

Stated working on finishing the wings. Block sanded the top of the starboard wing and applied filler to the skin seam. Sanded the two aileron top filler. The pictures show the Europa invading the house, with the flaps in the dining room and the wing in the living room to let things cure with the colder weather outside.

  Dec 08, 2020     Pinholes!!!!!!       Category: Ext Finish

The good news is that this way I'm doing it I only have to chase pinholes once. The bad news is that it's tedious! The good news is that toss is out for the flaps. Still got to do the ailerons but they Are smaller.

  Nov 29, 2020     Finishing Flaps       Category: Ext Finish

Sanded first primer coat on port flap and sprayed first two coats of epoxy primer.

  Nov 28, 2020     More filling and painting       Category: Ext Finish

  Nov 19, 2020     Trim Tabs Epoxy Primer       Category: Ext Finish

The trim tabs got their 1st coat of epoxy primer. This SPI primer is wonderful. Really enjoying it.

  Nov 19, 2020     Starboard Stabilizer and Trim Tabs       Category: Ext Finish

Yesterday sanded the first coat of epoxy on the starboard stabilizer and applied one coat of urethane primer. This coat will be mostly wet sanded away. Just there to hide minor sanding scratches. Then one more coat of final epoxy primer.

I painted the anti-servo tabs (lets call them trim tabs) with the first coat of epoxy primer.

Next will be the PORT stab.

  Nov 17, 2020     Finishing Progress       Category: Ext Finish

  Nov 11, 2020     Filling, Sanding, Painting       Category: Ext Finish

One of these days, with a little time, I will write down the details on the process I found to finish these parts.

It is my plan to bring them up to primer and then fly it like that for a year. then have the airplane professionally topcoated. I found a very nice company that manufactures their primers in Georgia and are fantastic with the DIY crowd. Their name is Southern Polyurethanes and they are great. They mostly sell primers and clears. They have an epoxy primer that is light and a bit strange. It goes on nice as a single stage urethane (it is glossy) but sands like a primer. Has no fillers so it's quite light. The interesting thing is that you can apply it and then put filler and repaint to your heart content for 7 days without the need to sand Saving a bit of work. You can see it in the picture of the white rudder. the epoxy primer I got from them is white. Its fantastic at showing defects.

Hey Marty, good job on the rudder. Looks really good!

Lots of work but in reality not worse than fabric covering. the Expancell filler with West 105 resin is great. Applies well and is super easy to sand. Cures perfect with no tackiness. Rolling the 5Start epoxy/acrilic primer is a joy and sands well. Then the application of polyester finishing putty to fill pinholes is time consuming but not horrible. Then the SPI epoxy primer, fantastic product. Some more polyester glazing filling (plan to use a little 2K filing primer to speed up the process and last coat of epoxy primer to seal the whole thing. The primer has a gloss to it and is very effective to seal the primers underneath and will not absorb oils. And it is very light. We will see.

The pictures show some of the stages of this process. I got the rudder finished and I am working on the elevator tabs (installed Flettner strips) because tropical storm ETA is keeping me from doing any further painting.

  Oct 30, 2020     Stabs Primed       Category: Ext Finish

Stabs with first coat of primer. This coat I rolled instead of spraying it. It forces the primer into the pinholes and it simply is much easier to do than spraying.

  Oct 27, 2020     Filling and Priming       Category: Ext Finish

Finished filling the flaps and found some time to prime one side of a stab. In the following days I will continue to san the filler and prime and sand and fill and sand......

My good friend Tom told me today the work of a composite aircraft builder is never done. Oh well.

  Oct 24, 2020     Control Surface Filling       Category: Ext Finish

As of today Rudder, Both stabs and flaps except for PORT top are filled. Will finish filling the PORT flap top and then sanding, priming, filling, etc.

  Jul 02, 2020     Bottom Stuff       Category: Ext Finish

I went ahead and performed the Mod 51 to strengthen the retract lever. Installed the swing arm and started work on installing brakes. Right now, with the rotisserie fixture, it is so convenient to work on the bottom that despite me wanting to do instruments, firewall and engine really bad I will first get all items in the bottom such as fuel system and landing gear done before working on the rest.

For those with good eyes and Europa knowledge you will notice I did the Mod 51 wrong. I placed the angle on the wrong side of LG08 (outboard). However, it works OK and provides a little extra clearance to the shock absorber bolt so I will leave it like that for now. Oh well!

  Jul 02, 2020     Misc Installs - Doors       Category: Ext Finish

Now comes the fun part, miscellaneous install of various components that I removed to paint the airplane. Shown are doors and landing gear.

  Jul 02, 2020     Completed months of sanding       Category: Ext Finish

Finally got around to posting some progress. In reality there is a lot more in terms of pictures but all this time all I really did was fill, prime, sand, fill, prime sand, fill, prime, sand....... you get the point (and I'm really sick of it but gotta get it done). As you can see from the pictures I did use guide coat for block sanding in critical areas like the seam. Works really well but I warn anyone that wants to do this that you will be trying to achieve perfection forever. I think I took it to about 90% perfect and then called it quits.

I also show the fixture I made to roll the airplane which has proved to be handy and easy to make.

Finally pictures of the plane on urethane sealer. Despite strong advice from Bud to not do this I decided I am not painting this airplane yet. I just lack the strength and my eyes are not as good as they used to be so I am going to have this plane professionally painted after I fly it a bit. The sealer would protect the primer and improve the cleaning before final paint. For now it does look kind of cool. I wanted to apply two coats of sealer but my body just quit after the first. So one coat it is and I will just say that its lighter this way although you can see some of the primer through the sealer :)

Added a picture of the windshield skirt. I think it came out nice!

  May 05, 2020     Organizing parts       Category: Ext Finish

My good friend Tom just got his new Rans S-21 kit and is doing his inventory. I thought this was a neat picture of how he's organizing his parts. Good luck on your build Tom and have fun!

  Apr 19, 2020     Windshield Skirt       Category: Ext Finish

Took a bit of finesse but got a nice smooth edge on the windshield skirt. Only time will tell how durable this edge is. I should probably seal it with the primer and paint to ensure humidity doesn't creep underneath the edge.

  Apr 12, 2020     Windshield Installation       Category: Ext Finish

Fitted and bonded the windshield in place. Came out OK. The windshield is a bit thicker than the rebate in the fuselage so it sticks out a bit (always something). Have a plan on how to deal with that. But overall, as always, things coming out OK.

  Apr 07, 2020     Bottom Primer       Category: Ext Finish

Today applied the first coat of primer to the bottom. Still much filling to do but getting there. This coat was rolled using a small foam roller that can be purchased at Home Depot. This filling primer actually rolls very smooth and nice. No masking needed, no issue with overspray and it fills pinholes very well.

  Apr 05, 2020     Finishing the Fuselage Bottom       Category: Ext Finish

Working on finishing the bottom. Not really trying to make it perfect since nobody really can see much of the bottom, and in particular the one on this airplane. But this airplane, probably because of years of storage, had a bit of waviness in the bottom skin. I really couldn't just leave it like that. So on its side the fuselage went and sanding, filling, sanding, filling. It's coming out alright. Hopefully this week I will roll some primer on it and continue filling and sanding. I am really looking forward to finish this phase of the build one day. There is some enjoyment on it (it's neat to see the job once done) but I really want to get into more fun stuff like installing instruments, electrical, engine, etc.

  Mar 29, 2020     Filling Primer       Category: Ext Finish

Finally, today got to apply filling primer to the fuselage. Came out pretty good with only a minimal number of defects that will need attention.

So the story with the funny looking spray booth is that one day our local EAA chapter offered that if anyone wanted a spray booth please come and get it. They were going to throw it away. So I went and got it. Took me quite a bit of effort to figure out how to put it together but finally I got it. Worked great although it is a little low and had a bit of difficulty spraying the top of the fin.

I did spray the bottom of the empennage but the bottom underneath the cockpit still needs to be filled, sanded and primed. Need to figure how to hold the fuselage up to do that.

The plan is to spray white urethane sealer and fly like that for a year. Then have it professionally finished at one point.

  Mar 15, 2020     Finishing Fuselage Bottom       Category: Ext Finish

Need to figure a way to rotate the fuselage to work on the bottom. The idea of standing on my back like Michelangelo didn't appeal tp me too much. So made a structure to attach to the engine mount attach points and allow the fuselage to be rotated. Seems to work well enough.

  Mar 14, 2020     HB Primer Joints       Category: Ext Finish

Today finished sanding filler in the joints and rolled HB primer.

  Mar 10, 2020     Trim tabs       Category: Ext Finish

  Mar 08, 2020     Filling seams       Category: Ext Finish

Filled all seams around the fuselage and fin. at least first pass is done.