Step 12.9, Painting begins

And the winner is...

After an extended period of agonizing indecision I've finally made my selection regarding the paint scheme.  My next step is to try and calculate the amount of paint I will need.  The paint store says I will need about 1 gallon per 350 square feet.  Having painted a few cars in the past, I know that I will probably be unable to achieve the very light coats and good coverage that a professional would do. I've had pretty good results with the lay it on heavy and then sand off every thing that doesn't look like a car method.  I'll try that with the airplane.

But how should I estimate paint required?  Hmm... How big is my airplane, I think.  I decide to break the problem down into very small pieces a, la, Leibniz and Newton.  Summing the infinitesimals I arrive at the value 470 square feet.  

There are many possible ways to calculate this, and consequently, many possible sources of error. My confidence in this number is fairly low.  Never-the-less, I trundle off to the paint store and return with this:

There's 1.5 gallons each of primer and base coat, plus two gallons of clear coat.  I have 1/2 gallon of the blue base coat and a quart of the gray.  I figure I will just get started and see how far the paint goes.

I'll start with the small pieces and work up to the Fuselage.  First scuff with a Scotch pad.  Here is an aileron:

The first coat is epoxy based primer

Here are the flaps and ailerons getting there base and clear coats.  The white is a three part process: Two coats of white base coat, then two mid coats with pearl, and finally two coats of clear over the top.

And the mad painter himself:

Finally, here is the horizontal/vertical stabilizer fairing. All purdy and everything.

The small pieces came out just fine.  I'm now confident that I understand the processes well enough and am ready to move on to the larger and more complicated parts like wings and fuselage.