Work continued on the jet’s paint job on Tuesday–and a long day it was. The detailed layout was completed the day before, so it was mostly a matter of masking off the various colors one at a time, using the additive process. This meant masking for the silver, then the black, and then the red. All three colors were shot with little need to worry about overspray, because once a color was shot, it was covered up – and the spots that hadn’t yet received their final color were fine if they got some overspray – because they would get their color later.
The base-coat colors are single-part paints, so there was no need to add hardeners, but reducer was added to make them spray. Drying time was quick, so in just a few minutes, it was OK to start repositioning masking to shoot the next color. While the jet started out the day looking like it was going to be gold, the black really started to bring out the eventual pattern, and when the red was applied, the effect was striking.
It was almost disappointing when the red had cured enough to continuing working, because most of the masking was repositioned to cover the red and black (the gold of the pinstripes remaining hidden since the beginning), so at the end of the day, the airplane once again was appeared mostly masked in paper, criss-crossed with various colors and widths of tape. It appeared particularly motley because the team was re-using paper whenever possible, not only to save resources, but to keep from drowning in a sea of used paper.
With only white left to shoot for the major colors, the expectation is that when that is done, detailed air brush work will begin before the end of the day Wednesday!
Here is the day’s time-laps condensed into 3.5 minutes.
