Paint...the full story

This week has been torturous for me!  I finally got to see the final paint job completed and get my airplane back.  The entire trip was somewhat challenging due to weather.  Jeff was unable to fly up with me due to some previous engagements so Mariah was nice enough to drive me up there on her way to visit her boyfriend.  She even hung around and helped reassemble the airplane.

We arrived about 6pm on Friday evening and found that Mike from Upper Valley Aviation had already reassembled the control surfaces on the airplane!  That saved me a couple of hours at least.  Mike, Mariah and I spend about 3 hours on friday evening finishing up most of the reassembly.  Saturday morning the weather in the Puget Sound was pretty ugly but not up in Canada so after filing my eAPIS to Tacoma Narrows I chased my tail trying to figure out how to modify it to allow me to land at Friday Harbor which I eventually did.  After passing through customs I sat for about a half hour trying to get some idea of whether or not I could get back into KPLU.  Since it was really iffy I decided to see if I could get a little closer to home just in case I had to have Amy come pick me up or spend another night in a hotel.  Bremerton was IFR as was pretty much everything so I turned around and headed back North.  I noticed that Paine airport was VFR and I knew that Chad would be out working on his airplane so I landed there to spend some time waiting out the weather.  I had lunch with Chad but the Paine Aviation Day's annual event was going on so I also got to visit with Martin B who was demoing his VR setup.

Finally about 6pm on Saturday night KPLU was showing marginal VFR so I decided to file IFR home and go for it.  The flight was pretty much uneventful and and even got some actual IFR time on approach.  I landed, tucked the airplane into her newly remodeled home and went home myself...content.

The original concept...except with yellow instead of red

One of the design options proposed by PlaneSchemer.

An iteration of the design as it nears its final look.

And the final design with paint colors and all views.

Leaving for Canada with no paint.  Picture courtesy of Jeff as usual (as are the next few)

Disassembling the airplane for paint.

A pile of parts that need paint.

Final walk-around before we leave it behind.

Progress at last!!  It took about 6 weeks from delivery date to get to this point.

Masking for the colors

Red color applied.

Control surfaces and other parts with red color applied.

Blue applied

blue on many of the "pieces" we removed for paint

The lower cowling...the blue looks amazing!

After landing and passing through customs at Friday Harbor. Finally back in the US!

And here she sits safe and sound in her own home!

The "Glamour Shot" taken by a photographer just before I departed Chilliwack BC.

Taking shape...

Once again I was out of town for the majority of the week so not much work got done on the 10.  I managed to get the engine out of the crate and up on the engine stand so I can begin the disassembly process.  I also got some time to work on the hangar finishing up the drywall hanging.

I do have some exciting news though..the 9 is almost ready.  Yes I know I said I was going to pick it up this friday but as I suspected would happen it got delayed.....again.  However, they have been sending me pictures so I know it's being worked on.

Masking for the red and blue....the design is starting to show.

More masking...without the actual design its hard to see where this is going... ;-)

Ok, a little more detail but the color can be deceiving... that's all I'm going to say.    

Lets play name that part....

Finally out of the crate and ready to put on the yellow engine stand.

I got the engine up on the stand and found that there was still a lot of oil in there.  In this picture you can see where I am draining the oil from the prop governor pad cover.  At least its up on the stand now and I can begin the disassembly process.

Drywall is done, now I'm waiting for the mud to dry so I can do another quick pass and then paint it.

Here is my new wallpaper....its the laminated RV-9 plans that I got from Jeff.  I decided they would look great on the wall so I started the hanging process while I was in the hangar today.

First peek....

Not much to display this week.  I did get some time to work on the elevators but that was mostly drilling and deburring which is not much fun to take pictures of.  I did get some work done on the hangar though.  Its not complete but at least its ready for the airplane to come home....hopefully next Saturday.

Speaking of the airplane I got a picture in email this week which means they are working on it!  Next Friday pickup is a very real possibility at this time!

Here she is with her white base coat of paint!  If you look in the paint booth in the background you can see some of the other parts of the airplane (cowling, control surfaces, fairings)

Another view of the first coat of paint

This is what the hangar looked like before I started....

This is what the back section of the hangar looks like after this weekends work.  I still need a few sheets of drywall, some mud work, and some paint but its getting close!  I have a lot of crap stored back there for now just to make room for the return of the RV-9A.

Work gets in the way....sorta

So I missed a weekly post again but this time I have a good reason...I've been traveling for work.  Well that's kind of an exaggeration since it was really a vacation trip but I did have to attend a few work meetings while I was there.  Amy and I went to Hawaii (Maui to be exact) for a work related trip this past week.  It was a fun trip and I posted a few pics below.

On the RV-10 I finished up the horizontal stabilizer.  Next up is the elevators and I may make a modification to the trim tabs but we shall see how that goes.

The engine arrived this past week as well.  It was very well packaged and other than open up the crate, take a few pictures, and put in some desiccant I just sealed it back up and will attend to it when I find a shop to send the case to for overhaul.

On a less than exciting front I was suppose to be headed to Canada today to pick up the RV-9A from the paint shop.  I had a call with the paint shop owner earlier this week and found out that it will not be ready for another two weeks.  I'm very frustrated with the whole paint progress.  I was so excited about getting my airplane in early so I could use it for an upcoming conference trip but now it's even later than the original delivery date.  So frustrated...I hope the paint job is worth the wait.

And the final topic of the week is I got to fly with Jeff to Montana on Sunday.  We flew over there so I could drive me new truck home.  I bought my dads Toyota Tundra so I would have a truck to haul things around.  I'm getting tired of having to borrow the 4Runner back from Mariah or rely on friends for use of a hauling vehicle.

Here it sits in its plywood crate before I sealed it back up.  O-540 B2B5 which is a 235hp engine that I will be upping to 260-300 horsepower by swapping out the pistons and probably the cylinders.  No accessories so I have to buy a few of those yet and since I plan on using the EFII fuel injection/ignition system I will have to purchase that as well.

The finished horizontal stabilizer ready to go to storage.

The view out of our room at the Hyatt.

Panorama of lunch

Jeep tour of the Hana road

Sunset on our last night in Maui.

Hangar is available again

This week I learned that the weekdays are for the RV-10 and the weekend is for the Airport.  I was able to get some work done on the 10 this week as you will see below.  I am doing all the riveting myself which really slows things down but I am finding that I like the results much better.  I'm sure I have at least 4 more hours of riveting left on the horizontal stabilizer but it's actually very enjoyable and relaxing work.

I spent the weekend at the airport working on painting the walls and just organizing things so that I can put the 9A in there when it gets home in a couple of weeks (hopefully!).  I have been getting so much help from Harry that today I finally got a chance to give back a little.  Harry has been wanting to weigh both of his airplanes for a while now and today we got a chance to make that happen.  No pictures but I learned a little about how the chapter scales work.

One more time...this is what it looked like when I started this project.

Here is what it looked like on Saturday evening.  Look at all the garbage on the floor to the left of the picture.

And here is what it looks like as of tonight.  Still lots of organizing to do but at least I will be able to get the airplane back in here.  Harry let me borrow him and his truck to take the pile of garbage to the dump.

skins are back in the cradle and I am ready to start riveting the nose ribs in place.

Nose ribs are riveted in and the process of riveting the skins to the remaining ribs and spars has begun.  This is how it sits on this gorgeous Sunday evening where the temperature is a nice 75 degrees with a very light breeze to keep it from feeling too warm!

I took this picture because I am very happy with how the nose rib rivets turned out.  there is very little if any distortion of the skin, just smooth flush rivets.

Lack of oxygen

This week I have three big topics for discussion.  First is the Hangar,  the front part is pretty much done except for lots of clean up and rearranging of existing tool/furniture.  Now I can start on the back section.

The RV-10 got a little time this week as well. I was able to prime the parts which means lots of dimpling, deburring and scuffing.  It's time to start the final assembly for riveting.

Finally I flew with Jeff down to Aurora Oregon yesterday.  We met Chad Hankins there and went through the FAA's Oxygen deprivation chamber.  Essentially they put you into a tent that is very low on oxygen and then let you see what flying up very high without oxygen will do to your body.  It was amazing the number of different reactions that we humans have.  In the group before us there was a gentleman who almost seemed to pass out but was still somewhat responsive.  I felt pretty dizzy with odd vision but my oxygen content never dropped below 70% so that was about all I felt.  Jeff looked like he was affected and they had him do a few extra tasks to make sure he was doing well but he was able to do them all.  He didn't remember doing one of them when we got out which was interesting.  All in all the training was well worth the trip.

The flight down to Aurora was awesome to say the least.  Jeff filed IFR and we got some great actual "in the clouds" time and finally feel like all the money we spent on training and equipment to get us ready was worth it.  We would not have been able to make the trip if we didn't go IFR.

Finally the RV-9 is still in the paint shop.  I talked to the owner and they ran into issues with another job so it looks like I won't be getting the airplane back until the end of the month.  Disappointing to be sure....but I guess these things happen and I want to make sure they do a good job on my airplane.

Paint is on the walls.  Not perfect because there was a slight color difference between the two gallons of paint...

West side of the hangar complete...almost

The sea of clouds as we broke out headed South to Aurora for the oxygen deprivation chamber.  If you look close you can see the tops of the olympics in the distance.

The sea of clouds on Jeff's side..oh and Jeff is in there too.  ;-)

Ever seen a round rainbow?  I was trying to get a picture of it but it didn't show up as bright in the camera.

Islands in the sea.

Tried to do a Pano on the return trip.  Prop looks kinda odd.

Oh yes, the RV-10.  Still working on the horizontal stabilizer.  The parts are all primed and almost ready for reassembly.

3 Weeks in a row!

Can you believe it?  This will be my 3rd week in a row that I have posted something on this blog...you would almost believe I was back in build mode.  I guess in a way I am since I still don't have an airplane to fly.  I do however have a hangar to work on and friends with airplanes that need passengers.  :-)

This week I got a lot of time to work on the horizontal stabilizer on the 10.  A few pictures below and its coming along nicely.  Its much easier to do this the second time around...still very time consuming with tons of detail work, but I spend far less time standing around scratching my head wondering what something should look like.

I also got some time in the hangar today.  I managed to get the drywall up on both sides of the hangar and I even put a coat of mud on the seams.  Maybe next week I will be able to start doing some painting.  I have the back half of the hangar to work on yet but this section alone should really help brighten things up.

Oh, one more thing.  I flew with Chad and Harry down to Mulina airport for mexican food yesterday.  I rode down with Chad which was great since I haven't been in his plane before.  I rode back with Harry and realized its been a long time since I have flown in the rocket...nice treat.  :-)  By the way, the mexican restaurant had great steak Quesadilla's.

Ok, on with the show...

Priming the spars and associated spar caps.

More spar parts for the horizontal stabilizer being primed.

Starting to cleco things together after riveting the spars together.

 

A picture of Chad landing at KPLU for our flight to Mulino Oregon.

 

Chad doing his runup as we get ready to leave Mulino

This is an interesting picture of Harry watching Chad as we flew in a very loose formation.

Another picture of Chad...this one didn't focus very well.

Ah.  Here is Greg's airplane with its shiny new paint job!  Beautiful airplane.

The new drywall is up on the East wall of the Hangar...

Drywall and mud up on the West wall.  I did get the East wall taped and mudded but didn't take a picture of that.

And just so we can remember what it looked like just a short couple of weeks ago...