Today we sanded the 1st undercoat on the fuselage and horizontal stabiliser and applied the 2nd undercoat. I think it looks pretty good, but I think Laurie is more self-critical in that department.

So the options from here are:

a) Apply the top coat(s) by roller as for the undercoats, using a finer type of roller so that there will be less streaking from the edges of the roller. Also increase the amount of thinners to promote paint flow and reduce the orange peel effect.

b) Set up the shed as a spray booth and spray the top coat(s). Laurie reckons it would give a better result, which I don’t doubt BUT is the quality improvement worth the hassle with spraying? With either method we would still buff, polish and wax the surfaces.

We decided on a trial scheme. We will roll on the top coat to the underside of the horizontal stabiliser and see if we can achieve an acceptable result. If Laurie isn’t happy with this we’d go to plan B and set up the spray booth. This will hopefully happen next Friday. I envisage that we’d only mix up a small quantity of the 2-pack polyurethane top coat for this trial. If this isn’t satisfactory, we’d set up for spraying over the weekend and do the deed next Monday.