Dear subscribers,

 

Talking to some friends there is one question where I would like to get more input:

Should fly my plane fly in primer or should I paint it before?

History:

It was a used plane with approx. 250 hrs, 10 years old and in a bad condition

It had cracks on the outside, screws showing through the filler, and gaps around the gear doors of almost one inch and a door that was absolutely not working right.

I removed tons of filler on the outside and a large area of foam on the belly that was not sticking to the carbon very good. I removed numerous screws in fuselage that were turning when I turned the nut on the other side.

We added areas of carbon to avoid cracks above the wings. I slotted all screws that I used through the carbon before floxing them in and put one layer of glass or carbon over every head. We rebuild the whole gear door and step area.

My friend that was helping me has 20 years of composite experience with certified airplanes. I can say we tried to fix everything that looked somehow suspicious and did not take any shortcuts.

I am almost to the point where I got everything primed and mounted to the plane to check for interference and functionality but none of my bolts are reliable tight. I got all my metal parts cleaned up anodized, nickel plated or primed again. Almost everything looks like new again. I was planning to take everything apart again and paint it. I do not want to paint it in an assembled condition because it would drive me nuts having paint in spots where it does not belong (sorry, I know I am difficult).

A friend mentioned the plane should fly in primer first to fix problems easier. What kind of problems should I expect (especially since it flew before) and what are your thoughts about this – It would require me to disassemble, assemble and adjust everything thouroughly, test it, disassemble for paint and assemble again.

Thanks for your input

 

Ralf Bronnenmeier

Phone: (419) 369 12 33

E-mail: bronnenmeier@grobsystems.com