Yes, you read the title well... 45 hours...
This article is the summary of all the work I did in the last 10 days to paint the interior of the cockpit and all the loose parts.
First I sanded and painted the loose components like covers, baggage cover, doghouse, etc...
My choice went to the BICHODUR 2K paint. It's a coating that does not require a primer and acts at same time as primer and finish paint. It's called DTM which means "direct to metal"
My color scheme will be white, dark grey and red for the outside, so for the cockpit, I'm going for similar colors and decided to paint the cockpit in dark grey RAL 7046. It's a mat finish so there's no reflection in the panel or canopy when it's very sunny. Not that "very sunny" happens all that much in Belgium... But everybody has to prepare for global warming and the consequences so I expect more sun in the future and therefor, no glossy paint on the inside :)
After painting the loose parts, I had to sand the cockpit area. This is really a big pain and looks like it's never ending. Fortunatly I got some help from Alain to do this.
We wet sanded it with grit 280, 320 and 400. According to the guy selling the paint, that's the finest you can get because over 500, it's no longer scuffing but polishing and the paint would not adhere anymore to the primer (the more you know...)
When all that was done, started taping the area's that do not have to get paint.
Taped the inside and the outside as to avoid grey paint dust to cover the plane.
And then the final spray painting. You have to plan carefully in what order to do this. I went "around".Started at baggage compartment moving forward and going around to the other side ending at the pilot side baggage compartment.
Floors first and then move upwards. The end results is good on the visible parts. Since it was very cold outside, I had to put heaters on to get the temperature to 15° in the garage and I couldn't open the garage door or pull cold air in by running my suction motor. The result of that is that a lot of the overspray fell down on the floors which made the surface at places rather rough.
This is not a big issue as most of these floors will be covered with carpet.
I won't try to sand it down and redo and take the risk of more spray mist on the sides. I can perfectly live with the results but it's a final decision now that I will not attempt to paint the outside myself. It's just to difficult and delicate to do it by yourself. I'll try to find a professional guy who wants to come and help me out.
Some shots of the result after the tape had been removed. You want to remove that tape the same day as the paint is still flexible and you will not damage the paint removing it. Later on when the paint has hardened, this may become more difficult.
Front side
Overall look from the back and front.
Overall, I'm very happy with the result and a dreadfull task is finally completed. Now I can start installing some systems permanently in the front.
