My 1946 120 Resto project N77220

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Kazoo120 » Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:31 am

Fuse now in PTI sandable epoxy primer! Shoots very well but "sandable" is something of a relative term. Scuffing with Scotchbrite should be enough to hold the topcoat just fine, minor flaws are sandable with 220/430 etc., but takes time.

Plan to topcoat this week, weather here in Michigan is holding well for it. The suspense builds!

A view of the booth

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Left side

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Right side

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 13, 2013 9:27 pm

Had some trouble chemically on the first attempt to shoot the fuse, took some time to recover and get back to a second attempt. It can be a tough world out there...

However last Friday we were ready to shoot again, including assistance now from local Pro-Painter Greg Harrison. Not only a prefessional shop owner, but a pilot besides.

Shot a basecoat/clearcoat system. First part was to spray the areas where the stripe would go. We worked from the drawing on the website, to restore the original '46 factory optional striping. I don't do this everyday, so it was a hoot to work backwards when laying out the stripe.

We studied pictures of planes we had taken at Oshkosh, even zooming in on individual rivets to get stripe locations. All the while checking against the blueprint. It was quite a process. I gave up at one point, using the fine edge tape at the rear crossover, after quite a few trials, we had it even and measuring correct!

Red sprayed around the fuse where stripe would go

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The rear

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Pro-painter Greg working the striping mask

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Masked and ready for metallic silver topcoat

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 13, 2013 9:47 pm

So this past Friday I played Hookey from work and it was 75 degrees and 50% humidity, time to shoot the silver metallic basecoat and then the all important clearcoat.

After taping the red stripe area, we shot the silver, then pulled the tape from the red stripe and clearcoated the entire fuse. It was pure pleasure watching Pro-Painter Greg shoot the fuse. 36 years of painting expertise and like dad always said, "you can't beat a man at his trade". Suffice it to say that the job lays perfect, the final product looks fantastic.

I wouldn't have imagined what would transpire, to get the paint to this fuse. This is the picture I've had in my mid, since pulling the plane from the barn one year ago.

Sealed the area of red paint beyond the striping, so that the silver would be painted over a uniform basecolor

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Silver going on

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The final product

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One year ago.

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:08 pm

A couple more shots, this paintwork was pivotal to continuing work. Weather held fantastically into mid October, not common up here in Michigan.

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:23 am

Unmasked and ready to continue with re-assy.

Unmasked

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Down the fuse inside

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:30 am

Continuing to work on painting. Hoping to get the empennage pieces shot before it's too cold up this way. Will shoot the landing gear soon, to get her back up on the mains.

Ready to paint

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Elevator

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Rudder

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Stabs

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Kazoo120 » Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:42 am

We're officially 1 year into the project this weekend! Purchased from an estate sale in Sparta, Mi after being stored for over 40 years. It has surely been a great project so far, and I've met a lot of great people and learned a lot about vintage aircraft restoration. I hold high hopes for it's appearance by this time next year!

As she sat for many years

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The light of day.

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Seems like she was smiling,,,

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Day 1 of the restoration project, one year ago!

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Kazoo120 » Sun Nov 03, 2013 11:16 am

Continuing with the paintwork on the Empennage. Hung the parts in the booth on dog chains, painted all parts together. This leaves the cowlings and some smaller pieces to finish.

Before

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After

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Kazoo120 » Sun Nov 17, 2013 10:19 pm

Great weekend's work on the plane. Seemed pivotal in that the fuselage went back up on the mains! We unboxed the Parker Cleveland Wheel and brake conversion and downloaded the crappy instructions (I work for a Parker division, I can be critical), and began to decipher the geometry quiz to install my first conversion. We had the torque plate on backwards and in the wrong order vs. the axle a few times, but finally managed to get it to something that looked like a proper setup. Why can't we have an exploded view that resembles the 120? Guess that Division has other things to do, than update paperwork for a 1946 installation,,,,

I installed the conversion without any correction shims initially, and got on the site here and read everything I could find about "Alignment". Initially the wheels were at about 6 degrees pos camber and 1/4" toed in. So there were 2 shims on each side of the old installation (had extenders on it when I found it), and I managed to shuffle them to undo some of the camber and toe to get a reasonable initial alignment at about 4 degrees pos camber and 1/16" toe on on each side, without the engine mounted yet.

The 100 series service manual and this site were great reference, it's on the main gear again and a thrill to see it at this angle after being on the rotisserie since last December !

Simple initial alignment

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Sitting pretty

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Handsome stance

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Again

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Kazoo120 » Sun Nov 17, 2013 10:29 pm

Also gathered up all the 0-200 parts I bought from Don Ivers in Florida and Terry Brokaw the local EAA chapter tech advisor stopped out to oversee the stuff. We're clear to hang the motor but I want to route the throttle, mixture, and carb heat cables first as I need a new hole for the mixture cable at least since the C85 with the Stromberg didn't have one.




Soon we'll really be looking like a plane again!

The 0-200. zero time on a full rebuild with all the good parts you could want. Don did a great job on spec'n it out.

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Table full of pieces,,,

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Tinwork painted

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