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For Ed Selby.

In response to your post about finishing, here are some thoughts. First, I
must say that all my comments are from a biased view point - that being the
fact that I wanted to be able to say that I did it all myself, including the
finish. Though I must admit that paying some shop $4-6Kto paint my little
pride and joy got my dander up!

I found the WLS primer system that Lancair touts worked just fine. Fills
quite nicely (though I could have taken more pains and done better) and
sands easily using a jitterbug sander to save on elbow grease.

After considering the bids I got for painting (see above) I concluded that I
could purchase a HVLP system for about $5-600 and if I never used it again,
I'd come out ahead. So, I bought a Croix HVLP unit from ACS and proceeded to
do the painting myself.

I used PPG Delthane catalyzed acrylic enamel and it seemed to be a perfect
match for the Croix machine. I had never painted anything of this magnitude
before but with a little bit of practice, the results were quite nice, if I
do say so myself!

The down side of all this is the need to create a big enough paint booth to
hold and manipulate all the big components. This was done in the back yard
with really big blue tarps creating a large tent. A large household box fan
(the ones that are about 21/2 feet square) was duct taped into a wall of the
tent so that it was blowing outward. Then appropriate sized holes were cut
into the tent walls and common furnace filters were taped into them to allow
free air circulation through the tent. The number of filters depends on how
strongly the fan evacuates the air from the tent - you keep adding them
until the tent stops trying to collapse!

The Delthane is less toxic than the wet-look stuff but a high quality filter
mask is still a necessity if you want to pass your next medical!

The heated air/paint from the HVLP spray gun takes a bit of practice but it
really isn't all that difficult to master and the over-spray is quite
minimal.

I think I kept at least $4-5K in the bank by doing it this way and I really
can say "I did it all myself"! Plus, I have a $600 paint sprayer in my
hangar in case I get really stupid and build another airplane!

Dan Schaefer

LML website:   http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
Builders' Bookstore:   http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair

Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.