It took me the remainder of 2023 to recover from injuries and regain enough facility to complete the paint work. Painting an RV-10 is a very large job and I’ve given up any notion of keeping track of hours. I painted the fuselage and doors in late December, took a break for a few weeks and then completed the cowls, rudder and VS in late January. As large as my blow-up booth was, I couldn’t do it all at once, apart from which applying paint masks and taping up between layers is such a time consuming job it would be impossible to do it on my own inside of the time limit to apply all colors.
Overall I’m happy with the paint job, it’s not up to professional standards but pretty good for an amateur effort and my out-of-pockets costs all up, including paint, were a small fraction of the numbers I’ve seen being spent on paint jobs. Most of the cost was paint – I used PPG CA7700 primer and CA8800 polyurethane paint. I compromised in a few areas where the paint design was a bit too ambitious. For instance, I was going to include a black surround across the window/door pillars as is commonly done with RV-10’s, but that was just more time and risk so when the time came, I omitted that step.
Since completing the paint job, I’ve been re-assembling everything, it has seemed strange to be fitting parts together that will not be disassembled again.
