Looking Good

You need THIS and THIS

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Ah Spring! It’s time to get those Mooney’s looking as good as can be, and you can do a lot of this yourself.

How’s the prop look? How’s the wing-walk look? What about the tie down rings, pitot tube, or elevator and rudder links at the tail? Is anything rusty?

Mooney’s sit low enough to the ground that prop paint maintenance should be addressed at least twice each year.

Take some medium/fine wet or dry sand paper and sand the prop front and back. Get out all the paint chip dings; check the leading edge for any dings, cracks, or damage --have your A&P mechanic address those. If your prop decal is ugly and worn, use a safety razor blade to carefully remove it and keep sanding, but stop sanding before raw aluminum is exposed if possible. Next, mask your spinner and cover the plane to protect it from over spray.

Use some thinner to clean the sanded surface, then take your open hand and swipe all the dust off of the prop. Paint the back side of the prop with several even coats of Krylon flat black paint (If you don’t use flat black, you will see your prop turning at night, which can be distracting). In fact, if your paint is chipping behind the prop blade, you can probably already see it at night.

Now, once that’s done, allowing time for the paint to dry fully, use some easily removed masking tape to go along the edge of the prop where the flat black paint separates from the front gloss color.

If you have a Hartzell prop, you may want to go back to the machine gray color they come standard with. Krylon makes this color. If, on the other hand, you have a McCauley prop, you might wish to use gloss black. It's entirely up to you- it's your plane. The important thing is that your prop is protected from the elements by paint. An added bonus to maintaining your prop's protection is that it helps keep corrosion from forming.

Apply all paint to the prop as evenly as possible, giving each side the same amount of coverage to help keep balance.

Allow to dry overnight. The next day, you can mask off the tips so that you can paint the outer edge of the blade. While the FAR’s state that a prop tip must be painted in signal orange, very few plane’s do these days. Most elect to use white.

Tape the prop so that you leave the tip area exposed you wish to paint white. Add 2 to 3 light coats, the final one a good gloss coat being careful not to let the paint run. If paint runs do occur, simply turn the prop while watching the paint until it tacks up and won’t run.

Those who paint their props black, can later add red stripes between the white stripes for a really nice effect.

Don’t fly the plane for the rest of the day so that the paint has time to set and cure.

While you’ve got your Krylon, you can remove and paint your tie down rings, hub caps, pitot-tube heat housing, and even inside pre-cleaned wheel wells to keep raw metal covered.

If your actuator rods are starting to rust, take some steel wool and cleaner to them. Next, paint the rods in order to keep the rust in check. You could even use a brush in hard to get places by spraying the paint in the spray paint can's cap, then brushing 2 or 3 coats to those tubes to protect them and make them look much better.

Most wing walks are usually become ugly and worn looking as time marches by. To address your wing walk do the following. Mask off the wing and plane, leaving the wing walk and step exposed. Then mask off the step itself- leaving the rough step part exposed. Now paint the walk and step with Krylon flat black, first up and down, then cross-ways with side to side applications. Remove the masking tape and paper to observe if any over spray got on to the plane. If there is over spray, use your paint thinner to remove it. DO NOT use any caustic cleaner on the Plexiglas!!!! Be certain the glass is well masked so that you don’t get any over spray on it. It’s a bear to remove.

Chaffing Tape

Next time your cowl is off, this is a good time to put some chaffing tape along the aluminum where the cowl overlaps the aircraft. What? Don't have chaffing tape? Try using the clear packing tape. Now you won't get the uglies when you fly through water as bad, and you will have less friction wear of the aluminum and/or fiberglass.

While you're at it, put some where the gear door comes in contact with your wing bottoms. To get a good bond, clean the area really well with a mild paint thinner, or better yet, with little Sean on the scene, I've discovered those baby wipe towels. Some of those remove grease really well and are mild.

I was fixing my cruise control yesterday and got really greasy. Those wipe’s kept nearby kept my hands reasonably grease free.

Anyway, you'd be surprised how much wear on the airframe you can save by chaffing taping it in those wear prone places.

Don’t forget the tail side fairing covers where the tail pivots from trim.