Patience. It's something I just don't have. Thank goodness I'm not a doctor. The following story is what not having patience leads too. This whole process started with me getting some grit in the paint when I painted a couple of tail pieces. If I had patience, I would have solved the grit problem and then started painting the fuselage. Maybe I thought the grit would magically disappear? Or maybe I figured if I ignored the problem it would go away?
What ever the reason (no patience) I wanted to get the fuselage painted. I was just too excited to get the fuselage painted and start working on the panel and wiring, etc... I sprayed the first coat of white and had a lot of grit in the paint. No problem, the first coat gets sanded anyway, so I'll just sand it down and then spray the second (and final) coat of white. Well, of course I got the grit again. I'm not quite sure why ignoring the problem didn't make it go away, but I thought, "Oh well, I'll just sand this coat down and it will be better the next time." Of course it will right? All problems solve themselves. So I sanded the 'final' coat down and sprayed another.
Well again I'm not sure why I got the grit yet again. I mean...all the hoping I was doing that the problem was going to solve itself was surely going to work right? If I just keep adding coats of paint, surely the grit will go away? So...I sprayed one more coat of paint.
At this point I got smart and realized that I need to be able to rotate the fuselage to paint it. WHOO-HOO! Now I'm being pro-active and actually figuring out a solution to the problem. (the grit was only happening when I tilted the gun horizontal to paint the top of the plane). I gave up trying my 'no-grit' rain dance and once more, I sanded down the fuselage. This time, however, I made a cool little jig that could rotate the fuselage. Since this was the 4th coat of paint I was spraying, and I could see that the paint was getting thick on the fuselage, I wanted this coat to go on nice and smooth so my genius plan was to spray one thicker coat instead of doing a cross coat. So here I go! I'm excited. I woke up early to put this final coat of paint on the plane once and for all. After this coat is done, it's off to the red and trim colors!
So I sprayed my one thick coat of paint...stood back and admired my perfect finish! Of course it still had grit on the top but it was a little better. But man did it shine! But wait...what's that? Is that...? NO! It can't be! Is that a...RUN?? Wait...that's not a run...that's a whole f*ckin' line of runs! F*&k!!! Now of course I'm going to have to sand this damn coat down to get rid of the runs. The runs were all over the tail and even the side of the fuselage. It was really bad.
By now I'm very familiar with this routine-paint...wait a day...sand.
This time, I decided to buy anther $500 paint gun instead of using the Citation HVLP. Long story short...I get the new gun and shoot another sixth? (I've lost track) coat of paint. The paint goes on nice, but I could still see all the runs. I guess runs just can't sanded down enough on fabric to make them totally disappear.
I have to admit that somewhere around the third or fourth coat of paint the thought of ripping the fabric off and starting over did in fact cross my mind. But after the 6th?...7th? coat of paint, and still being able to see the runs, the thought to start over was pretty strong.
I thought all night about it. Two recurring thoughts I had were 1. I don't want to fly around in a plane that I am embarrassed to show people. I am a perfectionist and having these major visible flaws would always bother me. 2. because I am a perfectionist, I found my self thinking that, "well...the fuselage is already f*cked up. It's got flaws. I'm not very motivated to take my time and finish this thing. Maybe I'll just hurry up and finish it, not even add things like wheel pants and fairings, and then just sell it once it's done. Then, I can buy another S-6S kit and really make it nice."
What the hell kind of though is that??
Screw this! I'm not spending $45,000 to build a piece-of-sh*t plane. At some point in my life, I definitely want to build another plane, but not right now. I want this plane to be as perfect as I can make it, and enjoy this plane for a while. I don't want to jump right into another project as soon as this one is done.
The only way to get motivated to finish this plane is to redo all the flaws on this fuselage. So I woke up this morning and headed out to the garage with an X-Acto blade! It was actually kind of fun! And believe it or not I feel relieved that I will no longer have a messed up, embarrassing fuselage.
I'm guessing this will cost around $600 for fabric, tape, glue, primer, and a gallon of white paint. Money isn't the issue though. I want a nice plane I am proud of.
Here's the moral of the story boys and girls...take your time. Duh! If you don't have the right tool for the job...STOP. Wait. Go buy the tool and then continue. Enjoy the process of building. Think about this...if you have to completely stop working for one whole day because you need to think about a problem or buy a tool, and let's say you have to do this 30 times during the length of your build, what's 30 extra days when you're talking about 2-3 years total time? What's it matter if it takes you 37 months instead of 36? Big freakin' deal! You absolutely have to have the patience to stop what you're doing and think about your problems. Yep...I learned this a little late.
You know what? The magic rain dance just doesn't work.
