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Fabric touch-up


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Posted

Hey y'all, my bird has the classic butyrate dope-with-aluminum-powder finish, but time and chance have taken their toll, and I see a couple of spots where touch-up would be highly desirable.  One is on the top of the wing, where some kind of solvent spill has lessened he UV protection in one local area.  Others just look like the typical hangar rash.  So is touch-up with a soft artist's paintbrush feasible?  I don't have any of the equipment needed for spraying, and to me this would feel like gross overkill.  I've got a quart of Rand-o-fill and a quart of thinner.  Should I just go for it?

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Posted

Contrary to the standard wisdom, there apparently is such a thing as a too-dumb question.  Well, I went for it anyway.  The result, while practical, isn't pretty.  Mine's not a show-bird, and I'm a pragmatist.  The magic, it's ability to fly, is unaffected.  Superstition likely would suggest that a fancy paint job is a groundloop invitation anyway, and who wants that?

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Posted

Contrary to the standard wisdom, there apparently is such a thing as a too-dumb question.  Well, I went for it anyway.  The result, while practical, isn't pretty.  Mine's not a show-bird, and I'm a pragmatist.  The magic, it's ability to fly, is unaffected.  Superstition likely would suggest that a fancy paint job is a groundloop invitation anyway, and who wants that?

:lmao:  Sounds like we think a lot alike.  I have had better luck doing touch up work with a foam brush versus a bristle type brush.

:BC:

 

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Posted

Turbo:

My MK4 was painted with butyrate circa 1996. When I bought it in 2016 I could see that the paint was cracked in many places. 

I had it stripped and repainted with Ranthane for a princely sum of $6K. It looks great and I swear it actually seems to have a bit higher TAS.

I have already had some fabric damage when one of my right MATCO brake pucks stuck and took me off the runway and up on the nose and left wing bending the axel, breaking one of the Whirlwind prop blades and damaging left wing tip including the outboard flaperon hangar.

I was going to report it to  AVEMCO, but decided the the $1K deductable would be half of what the estimated repair cost would be and they would most likely raise my premium.

Luckily I have hangar neighbors who have build aircraft who did most of the repairs including scarfing a new trailing rib section onto my outboard rib. 

I had our local fabric guy replace the fabric and the paint shop did the repaint. 

Total cost $2,000.

Interesting sidebar...

When we took the fabric off to access the damage we could see that the same thing had happened earlier in the life of the MK4, but was not indicated in the logs. So the brake puck must have caused the same thing prior.

Keep those MATCO brake puck sliders clean.

 

John M

 

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Posted

Question, my model 2 (which I think is original) has Matco master cyl's which I think are M5's. Along with Tracy O'Brien brakes which appear to be C-90's. The model #'s are worn or unreadable but appear to be M5's. Does theses correspond with the original equipment of a model 2. My model 4 had Cleveland master cyl's but am sure these are Matco's.

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