A paint job for N614EF

The plane goes into the paint shop in mid-April, so the design team contacted me last week to begin working on what the possibilities might be. As you may know, I want to stress the polished aluminum, blending in the fiberglass components without straight lines, so you don't have the usual "this is where the fiberglass ends and the metal begins" that I see with a lot of polished RVs. I also want to modernize the classic Cessna-style paint job, which also takes care of the problem of having a fiberglass buildup on a section of the top forward skin.

Again, here is the "canvas."

Here are the three initial proposals.

1A

2A

3A

I should point out here that like the rest of the project, the paint job is a "working man's project." That is: I have a budget and I have a limited supply of money. Lots of people have suggested painting the whole thing but (a) I like polished aluminum and (b) I have a limited supply of cash.

I tossed 3A out of the mix right away, mostly because it didn't draw my eye where I wanted it drawn to: the polish. And I'm trying to avoid having too many colors of paint, especially on the cowling. To me, silver says "this isn't really polished aluminum but we want you to think it is." Also, I don't like the fully-painted tail.

I liked 2A but it didn't accomplish what I needed it to. I have fiberglass "skirts" I put on the side of the metal side skirts around my canopy. They must be painted without drawing attention to them. This didn't do that. A

That left me with 1A, but I didn't like the bottom stripe, so I suggested eliminating that. My flying partner, Joe, also noted the size of the stripe on the VS is too thick.  And also, since the rudder has a fiberglass cap, the paint job doesn't work there. The color has to be taken all the way to the back.

I also suggested changing the wheelpants to eliminate the third color.

With those notations, I got these updates.

1B

1C

 

The first thing that was confirmed for me is I'm not a designer. I really hated my idea for the wheelpants. So I've suggested going back to the original 1A wheelpants. You can also see the lower "weight" of the stripe on the VS and you can see that the bottom stripe is gone. I like that. My motto here is "less is more", and, besides, everybody is doing the big "swoopy " paint schemes. I also liked how the fiberglass wing tips (although mine are the "batman" style, which are cooler and suggest a manlier man) are blended into the wing.  I didn't care for the silver gear leg fairings.

From the front, 1C looks quite Lancair-like, which is cool. But, again, I didn't like the wheelpant style.

So, I'm going with 1B so far with the original 1A gear leg fairings. There's also the empenage fairing, which will block that stripe, that needs to be accounted for.

But I think for the most part this will be close to the final design.

How much will all this cost? Well, it's interesting. RVers are terribly reluctant to reveal the price of their paint jobs, which makes it very difficult to compare things. Judged only on my original one-color  picture of the old Cessna 195, the original quote was $5k-$8k. I presume adding in some colors here is going to push that a bit higher. I'll let you know.

Feel free to contribute to the paint fund. :*)