Oh and again - I try to keep things on the lite side here in my shop. any comments I made are purely in jest. I am only trying to help and keep things fun. These planes are actually easy and fun to build. But I totally understand the phobias of build something like a 2m meter pattern ship, I've spent many nights lying in bed rethinking my steps that day. I'm as picky as anyone out there. This first plane that I am now finishing is one of the first prototype kits Mike produced early last year. I think I made most every major component twice just cause it wasn't good enough. It wasn't really needed but I just wanted to fully learn each step in the process and to develop my own process for building. Once you build one, you will see many options for the next. That is what I love about this process, to do it right it's almost a Zen type experience - be one with the airframe grasshopper

These build threads are a lot of work and I am sorry for letting things get a bit dis-organized. I am going to try and make up for my slackness in the finishing stages.

On this first project I am going to illustrate some creative uses of "spray masking" and airbrushing to do a more custom style paint job than the standard 4 color, straight line paint job that seems fairly common. I will also demonstrate some airbrushing techniques for simple color shading and blending to illustrative techniques using spray masks and free hand templates. I have an advantage over the average builder as I do have a 24" DC servo controlled vinyl cutter in my shop and a graphic design background in vector illustration, but I am happy to share everything I've got.

Some of the other products I will be using in the finishing stages are:

5-Star Prep Solvent and Degreaser - available at you local auto paint store
BVM Pin-hole filler
3M - blue fine line masking tapes in 1/8 and 1/4" widths
PPG k-36 primer
PPG DCC and DBC paints
SEM Candy paints
PPG Clear