N4831S

We start by detailing around all the windows and areas that are going to be sealed later. This gives us an opportunity to clean all the edges next to the glass as shown in the second photo. Also, all the flight controls are removed to be cleaned and prepped for paint.

Concentrating on cleaning the undersides of everything.

Got it cleaned down in preparation for the metal conditioner. The metal conditioner will provide us with a final "deep" cleaning of the metal before the wash primer goes on.

Got the stabilator removed, cleaned, prepped and in the booth. This will need to go quick because it pretty much fills the space up.

I'm old school, so I sand everything. The parts in the booth get sanded after the second coat of primer just like the airplane is in the first photo here. I sand with 320 overall once, then fine detail sand all over a second time to take care of rivet heads and sheet metal seams.



Got the finish coats on the stabilator and the wheel fairings. The stabilator is now ready for installation back on the airplane and the fairings are ready for stripe layout. As these come out on Monday morning, there's another booth full of parts ready to take their place.



Sprayed a small amount of Aviation Grey on the tail section before installing the stabilator to accommodate the areas where it will move up & down. This will allow the areas behind the leading edge to be painted and not show primer. Got the remaining flight controls in the booth now and ready for prime and paint.



Got the wash prime and corrosion prime done on the remaining flight controls. Got the stabilator installed back on the airplane. Now you can see where the grey paint paid off.



Got the finish coat of paint on the remaining flight controls.

Got the first two coats on the vertical and both wings. There's still one more finish coat left to complete these sections.



Got the finish coats on the wings and tail. Got the primer sanded and detailed on the fuselage, so we're ready for the white. That'll pretty much do it for the white finish except for just a few little things.





Got all the white done on the topsides today, finish coats included. We'll need to let it sit for at least another day before more masking can be done.



Got the last of the small bits done while working out the remainder of the airplane. The white low v.o.c epoxy primer works great for the fiberglass. Slow drying and flows excellent. Sand at least twice with two different grits of sandpaper to get a slick finish. Top coat comes out like above. A pretty slick process when finished.









    Powder coated the landing lite retainer with reflective chrome.



With the grey baseline done, we can now see how the trim stripes are going work out around it. The registration numbers are coming out right at 4" behind the flaps. The blue stripe on the top cowl is starting out at 2 3/4" wide at the front tapering to a point at the tail cone screw hole at the upper edge of the stabilator. The curved line is the top edge of the red stripe. We'll show the bottom side of that next, in order to be able to tell the width of everything.



Moved the numbers to 2" behind the flaps. I believe that's better than what I had it yesterday. The second photo shows the same thing on the left side. With where the number travels along the rear door, I believe this works out better at 2" here too.





The rest of the fuselage scheme is set up like this:

Keeping in mind that the center of the fuselage area (around the vacinity of the numbers) has 2" of Blue sitting on top of the gray...........

we have 1 1/2" of gray between the blue stripe and the top of the red stripe.

the red stripe is 1 1/2" wide at this same point. it continues at 1 1/2" wide until it gets to the fin where it gradually tapers off to a point at the upper rear corner of the rudder.

and the tops of the numbers are sitting 2" below the bottom of the red stripe.

   View of the RH wing tip looking forward.

     View of the RH wing tip looking aft

    View of the LH wing tip looking forward

    View of the LH wing tip looking aft.

What we have here is keeping the design with the drawings and in comparison to the scheme on the fuselage. Since the fuselage starts out with 2 3/4" of blue at the tip of the nose, we start with 3" of blue that sits exactly 6" inboard from the grey on the tip. This will give us just enough room to swing the curved line in from the opposite side and stop at point that is 6" inboard from the leading edge and 6" inboard from the trailing edge and centering 3" between the tip and the blue stripe. Don't let the tape here fool you. I used 1/2" fine line to lay out the blue an 1/4" to lay out the red. This gives us more control over the blue line that wraps around the wing as opposed to the line that has to have a curve in it. The red line is 11/2" wide when it crosses the center of the blue line. We kept this measurement since it worked well on the fuselage and seemed to go very well with the 3" line on the tip. To get this curved and set just right took a long time, but I believe its paid off.



What I did here was a combination of designs. I made an attempt at keeping with the overall scheme of the airplane while at the same time making it flow with the wheel pant's shape. What I originally had was the lower red stripe more shallow like the one that's on the cowl. I didn't think this looked right on the fairing because we have to pull off relatively the same look over a shorter distance. This also made the red stripe look too flat instead of sharp and wavy. I also looked at the drawing and combined that with the similar scheme that's on the new Piper 6X and the Archer. Both of the newer airplanes had the top color of the wheel fairing coming off to a point on the nose of the fairing. So the end result shows (in the first photo) of how the grey on the top of the pant will come off to a point and wrap around to the inboard side of the pant in the same manner as the outboard. The blue stripe will be 1" wide and sit right against the grey as it is on the fuselage. This will wrap around the inboard side of the pant and follow the grey. The red stripe sits 3/4" below the blue down in the white area of the pant. The red is approx. 3/4" wide at the center, but comes off to a point at the front and rear of the pant. The actual point of the red sits a few inches back from the nose to more follow what's on the rest of the airplane.

Remember when you look at this that the top is going to be grey, where you see the 1" of blue tape will be blue, and the inside of the taped lines at the bottom will be red. Focus on the inside of the tape to get an idea of the amount of red that will be there.



Since we're doing metallic trim colors, its necessary to spray all the same color stripes in the same run. We've got criss-crossing metallic color stripes, so it'll be necessary to spray one color base coat, then the other color base coat, and then topcoat both red and blue with the clear at the same time. Not much too look at here, since the base coats produce a dull finish and won't gloss properly until the clear is applied.

Shot of the Ruby Red metallic color.





This gives an idea of the stripes for the trim on the wheel pants. Got the base/clear done on both colors, so all that's left here is the grey for the top of the wheel pants. I believe this will give us a wider, flatter look which will be more like the later style wheel pant even though it's shaped different.



Still got some clean-up and detailing to do, but here's a sneak preview.



Couple shots of the grey on the top of the wheel pants.





Installed two new Com antennas and two new door bumper blocks. The bumper blocks were a real hoot. No nutplates or anything. Just screws and nuts with the nuts being tucked up under the headliner and behind bulkheads, stiffeners and whatnot.