Boot Cowl

Anxious to get on with the wiring, the paint booth was cleaned, the plastic walls rolled up, and wiring started as soon as the fuselage was painted. Getting the painting done was such a relief.

Then it occurred to me: once wired, the boot cowl would need to go in place before the engine could be hung. I had not painted the boot cowl. More troublesome, the days were getting cooler and the time to get it painted was growing short.

So the wiring came to a halt. The plastic was unfurled, the fuselage was moved out, and back to painting. Ugh.

The etching primer went on easily, followed by the PPG polyurethane paint. The results were a pleasant surprise: it looked car – like in its quality.

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But the bottom portion of the boot cowl needed to be painted silver to match up with the fuselage, so the boot cowl was temporarily placed on the fuselage and the location of the silver paint line determined. The Polyfiber Poly Tone went on easily. While the paint booth was set up, the landing gear components were also painted Poly Tone Nevada Silver after buffing with a Scotch Brite pad and spraying the powder coated surfaces with Bull Dog Adhesion Promotor. The plan is to finish the wiring, install the landing gear, then install the boot cowl, followed by the engine. That should take me through winter.

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The moral of the story: don’t forget to paint the boot cowl before moving on to the fun stuff.