June 2016
Wow almost 6 months since my last update. Time flies but CF-CLR doesn't yet. Significant setbacks involving paint contamination caused considerable head-scratching and a whole bunch of additional work in the form of wet-sanding some parts, and overhauling my painting setup.
I've learned that when problems with painting arise, a good plan is to take a break. Take the time to do the research and analyse what's going wrong. So I turned my attention to other things. I needed to get the cowlings fabricated anyway so I went on a bit of a sheet-metal "banging binge".
In the mean time I believe I've solved the painting problems. Basically what happened was, after following the Polyfiber manual exactly, when I applied the topcoat to the tailfeathers I ended up with dreaded fish eye and a significant amount of visible contamination.
Cutting a long story short, the solutions amounted to NOT using Polyfiber's prep-wipe (which is solvent-based) and instead use an alcohol-based prep-wipe. Throwing away all my so-called "Boeing approved" tack cloths as they appear to deposit more fibers than they remove debris, and to make sure, completely resealing my paint booth, installing new finer filters, and washing the whole thing from top to bottom.
So the cowlings are finished and I have a back-log of fabricated parts waiting for primer. I'm currently making new engine baffles because I realized this required on and off of the nose bowl, which is better done before topcoat.
Look for updates in Doors, Fuselage, and new sections Landing Gear and Firewall Forward.
