Last Modified December 2nd 2002.

November 2002, Top Gloss Off!

1st November Worked on my fuel processor.

2nd - 3rd November The love/hate relationship with PolyFiber's Top Gloss continues with the word divorce (among many others) being mentioned this weekend. I have now re primed the lower cowling and, worst of all, sanded back the entire aft section of the plane from the cockpit ready for respraying due to the fact that there is a colour mismatch between the original cans I had purchased two years ago and the current can. Since I used the new can to touch up the filling I had done to match the cowling shape all I have succeeded in doing was move a tide mark further aft. I have been trying to avoid a respray but the line is really bugging me. The upside is that the current can is settling to a really hard white and is finishing very well with minimal sanding and polishing and I am quite confident that it'll only take one spray session and a few hours with my polisher to get the finish looking good again. I am trying to avoid respraying the rudder at this stage but if the colour mismatch is too great then I'll remove the rudder and spray that as well.

4th - 6th November No building, working in Wellington.

7th November Masked off the fuselage

8th November No building

9th November Sprayed the fuselage.

10th November A tiny disbond near one of the rudder screws showed that all was not well with the paint. Pulling this back indicated that the disbond was between the primer and the Top Gloss and that it was terminal. Within 10 minutes I had peeled most of the top coat off the fuselage which just came off in sheets. I repeated the process on the stabilators, the rudder, one flap and one aileron during the afternoon and, without exception, all the surfaces easily peeled back from the primer. I was considering throwing the sheets of top gloss into the rubbish bin but Carol suggested that I pack it up and post it back to Polyfiber together with an invoice to cover the cost of the product.

I have probably wasted over 200 hours and six months work on Top Gloss. I am still happy with Smooth Prime primer but won't now go near waterborne finishes for top coating. Now I have to tidy up all of the surfaces, do some refilling on patches and find a commercial painter.

11th November Having a day off while I sulk a little.

12th November Started the tidy up.

13th November Meanwhile back on the instrument panel.... I mounted the main and ground buss bars. To do this I used nylon nuts and bolts so that there were no exposed power or ground points on the underside of the panel. Once that had been done then it was back to the garage for another three hours of tidy up. Carol has suggested that I quit building for a few weeks but I'd prefer to get the fuselage looking tidy and then get it out of the garage and down to the painters. When referring to having the plane painted commercially, Carol used the words "on the next one you build"  -  which has to be a positive sign :-)

14th - 15th November No building

16th November I spend six hours picking off little bits of paint, sanding and then filling odd little nicks with super fil. It's interesting to note that in the section on the underside either side of the main wheel the top gloss has actually bonded very well... which means the only way to get it off is to lie on my back with a sanding block. This was the very first place that I had applied top gloss and, being the underside, had decided not to over cover with UV smooth prime. Slept very well that night!

17th November Sanded back the superfil areas then abandoned the garage for the dining room floor. I spent most of the afternoon wiring up the power busses to the breaker panel and off panel connectors. Each of the busses is colour coded both on the buss and also on all of the connectors that go into it. That way it not only looks pretty but it makes it easy to work out which buss the connectors should plug onto.

18th - 21st November Worked on getting the new version of my fuel gauge working. Resisted the temptation to throw my computer across the room when I discovered a communications bug which turned out to be PC related and not due to my code.

22nd November More paint sanding.

24th - 28th November No building. In Taupo for a conference.

29th - 30th November No building.