December 18, 2021

Repairing Thwing!'s Cowling

This is the last part of an article describing the repair of Thwing! due to damage caused when the motor came loose from its mount in flight.

Repairing the cowl wasn't difficult at all. It was simply a matter of gluing chips back in place, filling dents and gouges, sanding and repainting.

	I began working on the cowl while waiting for glue to dry on other areas under repair. Thin cyanoacrylate (CA) was used to glue loose pieces back in place. The entire cowl was sanded to take off the shine so that filler and new paint would adhere better. Slow-drying epoxy with talc mixed in were used as filler. Note: Every time I sanded the cowl, bare wood was masked off to prevent black powder from getting into the wood grain.
	The filler was sanded and more filler was added as needed.
	The cowl isn't pretty at this point but it is smooth enough to paint. The best thing to do is sand off most of the old paint, spray new primer and then spray fresh paint. I elected to skip the primer. If the cowl were a light color then primer would be necessary to create an even base color.
	Unfortunately overspray goes everywhere. It took longer to mask the model than to actually paint it. A lot longer actually. Painting took all of 20 seconds with an airbrush, but masking probably took 30 minutes. The entire model is masked top and bottom.
	The cowl was airbrushed using the same paint (Klass Kote) as was originally used.
	Finally Finished! Thwing! is ready to take to the skies once more!

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