Tailboom Trim - 1 hour (406 Total)

I spent some time cutting and fitting the trim that fits around the tailboom. Fitting the Trim was difficult because of the lack of clearance between the sheet metal and the boom tube.

I need to purchase some super glue to adhere the trim into place.

Painting Plane - 0 hours (405 Total)

Today I rolled the plane back into my workshop. The painter still has some work to do on the smaller pieces but they should be done within a few days.

It took the painter about 50 hours over a two week period to paint the plane. As expected, masking a prepping took the most time. The total bill came out to $2000; the cost and the total time was more than the painter or I expected. I had the painter charge me on an hourly basis instead of quoting me a flat fee. My reasoning for this was too keep the painter from cutting corners towards the end of the project if it took more time, effort, and materials than he based his quote on. This kept both the painter and myself happy.

There were two major problems along the way. The first was on the bottom of the plane. We hung the plane from the ceiling to allow the painter to paint the under side. It appears we didn't raise the plane high enough because we had some rough textured, dry overspray on the bottom.
The other problem was caused some rough spots on the primer coat. The painter did not sand down the primer coat. The resulting bumps were easily seen after the color and clear coat were applied. The bumps turned into white dots when the painter tried to sand them out.

Both issued above required the painter to sand, paint, and clear the body over again! Luckily, the tail boom did not have and of the primer bumps and didn't need the repainting. The extra paint will add some weight to the plane but since most of it is in front of the center of gravity, it should give me a CG benefit.

One issue that I will have the painter touch up is the metal strip around the nose cone. In many placed the paint is too thin which allows the primer to show through.

I am quite happy with the paint job. Below are some pictures the painter took for me of the painting process.