Just Puttering

It's been great fun exhibiting my little Mooney M-10 Cadet at some places during the Fly-in season. My friend Clark made me a beautiful poster board to put up in front of the airplane when it's parked. One of those signs that tells about the plane. Clark also made a nice little model of the plane. He made it from scratch. People ask me if I'm going to this Fly-in or that. In light of all this, I'd like to spruce up 42V a bit. It sat for six years in the weeds. It needs cosmetics. The right wing has these huge "potholes" in the paint down to the primer. I have no money for a paint job. I have no knowledge of paint. I went to an auto body and paint shop. I had a panel from the plane. They stuck it under a computer camera thing and matched my wing paint. They asked me what kind of paint I had on the airplane. I did not know. They asked me what kind of paint I wanted. I did not know. They asked me who was going to do the painting and I said "Me, I guess". They asked if I'd ever painted anything before and I said "yes, with a spray can". They said that they could put my color in a spray can if I wanted. But I didn't want to be limited to spray cans. So they sold me a quart of a Urethane product. It comes with something called "reducer". And something called "actuator". I literally asked the parts lady to tell me how to mix and paint. She told me, and it sounded like "reducer" is paint thinner and "actuator" is hardener. One quart of paint and it's additives came to $175. Pretty expensive touch up paint. So now I had my paint. But only a quart. And I didn't know if it would match. I have a nice spray rig that I bought before I retired. It's a good enough gun. It's new still in the box and I don't know jack about how to use it. So I thought about this for a few more days. Then I went to the hobby shop and tried to buy an airbrush to practice with. The airbrushes he had were set up for ready made cans with ready made colors. Also they would be hard to adapt to my compressor. And they cost about $100. I thought about it some more. I went back to the lady at the auto body place. "You wouldn't have an airbrush would you"? "We carry one type" "Will it work with a compressor"? I say. "Only way it will work. Do you have a regulator that you can set to 25 PSI"? "Yes". "Do you have a water separator on that regulator"? "Yes". So 42 dollars later I have an airbrush. I think about this some more. One day I fool around with the compressor fittings and I get that airbrush all hooked up and get my compressor regulator dialed down. Then I think some more. A couple days later I finally open that quart can of paint. I take some of that reducer and I run it through the airbrush. I mix up a minute amount of paint. I take some more reducer and clean the surface of the wing I'm going to touch up. Then I start spraying with this gypsy rig and it's really kind of fun. I realize I have no idea what I'm doing. The paint match is really damn on. The wing looks better already. I've got a feeling it's gonna be a pretty steep learning curve when I start spraying with a real gun. I'm going to think about this some more.