As a result of playing Boat Tetris in prep for Tropical Storm Gordon, the Canoe Works are now open. Our Grumman 17 double ender SCOUT is going to get a field expedient combat paint job.
SCOUT will get a tribute paint scheme to the American Volunteer Group Flying Tigers, they defended China against the Japanese before the US entered WWII.
I thought I could spot spray a few areas, but there were too many scratches with flaked paint edges and start of corrosion. Sanded scratched paint areas with 120 grit on a randome orbital sander to get rid of sub surface corrosion and give the aluminum some tooth for paint to grab onto.
Taped a waterline for the light gray fuselage bottom.
Transferred waterline to opposite side with our cool cloth tape measure. To make it easy I slid the tape back until an inch or half inch line was centered on the keel, in this case 9 inches, then doubled the number to 18 and marked the opposite line with a small strip of tape. We marked about every foot or so.
Starboard side waterline. Started a long strip of tape, about 4-5 feet and laid a fair curve close to the small tape markers. Found a few math errors and adjusted.
Painted the bottom with Kirby Light Gray cut with 50% White to make Light Light Gray, brushed with a Corona Trim brush. George told me it would have been optimum to brush a coat of primer first but I was too excited. If it comes off I'll redo it or call it battle damage. With the 95F heat index we had I found it best to lay down two brush widths vertical then tip it horizontal, had to work it fast before it got tacky.
Bottom of "fuselage" painted.
Test area to see if I could blend in the Patina Bronze base paint for the side. Liked the clean taped line better. The test area will be painted over with the shark's teeth. As I finished the side the first gust front from TS Gordon blew through, 35 mph gust. Had to move SCOUT into the Carriage House and she bunked with ZIP. Also had to pick a few pine needles off of the tacky paint!
Port bow, worked on the pattern for the shark's teeth.
Log of SCOUT.
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