Painting my own plane

[jetdriven]

Seriously, though if you have extensive experience painting stuff and you value your time at zero you can paint airplane and save money but it’s going to look like you painted your plane to save money. And when you go to sell it that’s going to be reflected to. And that’s even before we talk about the artistic aspect of all the layout. A magazine picture of a long body morphed into a short body or a mid body airplane painted in a T hanger frankly, doesn’t look that good, if you buy the right materials it’s gonna cost about five or seven grand.  
 

Shoot, Hakf the time the paint shops can’t even get it right, and you see a series of 1 foot long tape lines morphed into a curve waterline or solvent pop, overspray, or everything else that’s wrong with paint jobs.

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

It looks like an Earl Scheib paint job where they do they windows, chrome bumpers and rubber trim at no extra charge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Scheib

 

[Fly Boomer]

Thanks @Shadrach, that was fun!

[Shadrach]

5 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Thanks @Shadrach, that was fun!

I remember his commercials vividly though at that time Sesame Street was at the top of my daytime TV watchlist.

[cliffy]

Unfortunately that is a later commercial It used to be $19.95   when he started to advertise

Again I'll say "Its a lot more work that you realize to paint the airplane yourself".

It can be done BTDT

BUT  Won't do it again.  Painted many cars in my youth and they are no where near as hard work as planes.. 

[JayMatt]

Thank everyone for the advice. Some interesting tid-bits of information here and there that will be useful. Right now I have the plane mostly stripped. Still have balanced control surfaces to do but it's getting there. 

It's not really about saving money as much as it's something that I just want to do with my airplane. I currently plan to polish it to a mirror finish and fly it like that for awhile. I'm well aware of how much time this takes as I've already done some of it. But to me its all fun and interesting and something to do. 

The majority of this stemmed from corrosion "issues". Or so I thought from a picky A&P that made it sound like I had more than I did. Either way, I know exactly how much I have now and I'm cleaning it all up. So far I'm still enjoying the project. 

The cowl will most definitely be painted and I may leave the rest polished aluminum for awhile. When I feel like I'm bored with polished aluminum I'll move on to a paint job. The plane is much further along than these pictures show but this will do for now. I currently have new numbers on it and all the paint stripped with a good bit more aluminum polished out. The polishing has been a serious learning curve and the hardest part of the whole thing for sure. But like I said I enjoy working on it and its a labor of love. I have a decent amount of wok to do to the cowl as whoever modified it didn't do the best job. Also a minor bird strike on the wing that had a sub par repair job. I'm too anal about quality to let anyone else strip and clean up my plane so I just keep at it. 

[jetdriven]

I’m not sure that Plane is going to polish to a mirror finish.

[Marauder]

Are wraps an option?


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[KSMooniac]

I borrowed this from a FB somewhere... Would love to see one in person!

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[EricJ]

Nice going!    It definitely won't be the first polished Mooney, but might be the first polished J.   

Keep posting pics in any case!   It'll be fun to follow your progress.

[M20F]

1 hour ago, jetdriven said:

I’m not sure that Plane is going to polish to a mirror finish.

With enough muscle and buffing compound you can make anything shine. 

[Marauder]

IDK, Byron.  I’ve seen lowly and relatively thin skinned C-140s that had been polished at KOSH that you know had led hard lives for many years before someone restored them to a mirror finish.   I’d love to see someone do that to a Mooney.  Or at least try.  

I think there was a MooneySpacers who did this and posted on the site. I don’t recall their ID but remember the pictures.


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[jetdriven]

Wild horses racing. I remember the paint was knocked off of it but as far as getting it to a mirror shine, it had too many scratches in it has been sanded on in the various places. 2024 aluminum does not shine up like a Alclad and Alclad tthat’s often scratched through and then you sand or polish through the Alclad to get the scratches out of it anyway it’s just that modern airplanes are not built like classic airplanes with extra thick  Alclad

[EricJ]

Wildhorses old C model.   I think his daughter polished it just as a project.  He flies a Hatz and a 172 now.

[Wildhorsetrail]

I admire your dedication. Because of that I'm sure your going to have good results. Keep us posted. You'll have it more to your liking and definitely have more satisfaction when you're done.