Paint Booth Construction Continues

We discovered that the walls of the paint booth were not plumb and many corners were not right angles.  We added some bracing in the corners to correct this problem.  Once the walls were corrected we added framing for the inlet air.  We framed two 20"x20" air inlets to accept 20" Box fans and 20"x20" filters.  We also framed in the area around the A/C hoses to isolate them from the room.

Inlet Air Framing

Framing around A/C hoses

On the front of the paint booth, we will have two removable doors to bring the large pieces of the airplane inside.  We framed these in with 2x4s and we have the provisions for 4 air exit ports if needed.  We'll tune the airflow on the room later.

Ed admiring the two new front doors

Once the framing was done, we started installing Plastic on the walls  Depending on the location, need for light transmission, and viewing pleasure we installed various thicknesses of plastic.  2mil plastic with the best clarity will be used on the ceiling.  Our 4mil plastic is the cloudiest and was installed on the back wall and the left wall.  The right wall got a section of 4mil plastic around the inlet air filters. Between that section and the small entry doorway clear 2mil was used so that work could be monitored outside the paint booth.  And finally, a small section near the front of the paint booth was covered with 4mil to finish the walls.

The two front doors were covered with a 6mil plastic we had laying around who's clarity was somewhere between the 2mil and 4mil plastic we bought recently. 

Plastic Going Up on Walls

Front Doors with Plastic Covering

One trick we found while watching someone build a paint booth with plastic, was to put duct tape underneath every staple used to secure the plastic.  This will help keep the plastic from ripping at the staple points.  Hours: 14.5

Paint room mod and back wall

We made a slight adjustment to the top of the paint room to prevent interference with the garage door by rotating four of the ceiling 2x4's by 90 degrees.  Sure, the ceiling will have more flex, but that doesn't really matter for a paint booth since it isn't holding any weight.

We also added some 2x4's to form a back wall.  The back wall will be a little trickier to seal since we have ducts for a portable air conditioner running out the back wall.   Hours: 3.0

Current state of the paint booth

Paint Booth Work

Now that we've got the fuselage out of the garage, it is time to start construction of the paint booth so we can finish the covering job.  A large load of lumber was bought from the local hardware store.  Our paint booth will be roughly 10ft x 20ft.  Due to the garage door there will be two heights to the paint booth.  The taller section will accommodate the tail section and the lower section will accommodate the cockpit area of the fuselage.

We first constructed one wall to locate where we would need to place the steps in the ceiling.  We had many trial and error moments to get the wall height near the garage door correct.  We finally settled on all the dimensions.  Ed precut the boards for the second wall.  We assembled the second wall, which went together much quicker with the precut lumber.

Assembling the Second Wall

Second wall complete and ready to lift into place

Finally we raised the second wall into place.  We had to be careful around the A/C intake/output hoses and condensation drain lines.  Once the wall was in place, the 10ft rafters were installed one at a time.  We ran into one issue that will have to solved.  The garage door has a bracket in the middle that the garage door opener attaches to and as it travels it hits the installed rafters.  It may be as simple as rotating the rafters 90 degrees.  Hours: 12

Rafters being installed

Paint Booth coming together

Fuselage moved to hangar

We needed to move the fuselage to the airport so that we had room to build a paint booth in the garage, so wrapped up the fuselage to prepare it for the move, and then the next morning we loaded it up on the trailer and towed it away.  The move went very smoothly with no issues.  We always have to watch out for low hanging limbs when pulling out of the driveway, and also when driving (very slowly) down the narrow road leading up to the hangar.   With Michael's expert driving skills, and my unmatched talent at lifting low branches with a broom, the trip went without a hitch.   (Hours: 4.0)

A quick pic of the fuselage before the move

Fuselage in front of the hangar, ready to be unloaded

Turtledeck fasteners, Prep for paint booth

We installed Camloc style fasteners (made by Skybolt) on the turtledeck.  We had an issue, though, because the studs (sized S-2) were too long, and the next smaller size (S-1) were too short.  After some investigation, it appeared that some of the studs we received had a manufacturing issue.  There was supposed to be only a 0.03" difference between the two sizes, but there was twice this (0.06" difference) between the two.  We thought the issue was with the S-2 studs, so ordered some replacements directly from Skybolt to ensure we received the correct ones, but we had the same problem with the new parts.  Luckily, we also ordered some adjustable receptacles as a back-up solution if the new studs didn't work out.   So instead of waiting for new parts once again, we just drilled out the old receptacles and installed the adjustable ones.  This allowed us to dial everything in correctly so that they fit perfectly. 

Turtledeck installed

Close-up of Camloc fastener

The fuselage was taken off the rotisserie and the landing gear was once again installed.  We did this because we now need to move the fuselage back to the hangar (for temporary storage) so that we have room in the garage to build a paint booth. 

Landing gear installed again

We also spent several hours cleaning up and planning how to build a paint booth in the garage, yet still have room for everything we need.  We settled on a plan for a 10'x20' booth, and will have to completely rearrange the garage as well as put some things in the shed for storage.   Lumber for the paint booth was also purchased.  Hours: 9.5