Cowl Surface Finishing

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There are probably a dozen "recommended" ways to finish the surface of the cowl.  Small pinholes all over the surface need to be filled prior to painting.  For the first step, we used epoxy (West Systems 105 with 206 hardner) and micro balloons mixed to a runny paste.  After cleaning and sanding the surface, we squeegeed the paste over the entire surface.

The cowl didn't fit perfectly at the bottom corners so we used thicker micro/epoxy to fill the space.

After hardening, the surface was sanded again with 220 grit.

After sanding, we primed the cowl with Veriprime (a fairly thick layer).  There were hundreds of pinholes that the micro/epoxy did not fill.  Glazing (spot) putty was thin enough to be troweled into the pinholes.  It dries quickly and can be sanded in 30 minutes.

Very light sanding with 220 grit removed all of the spot putty and most of the primer.

Areas where the spot putty (red) filled the pinholes is obvious - we didn't fill on the upper half of the picture.  Another coating is required to fill all of the holes.  Instead of Veriprime, we are going to try DuPont sanding primer for the next coat.

DuPont 30S (grey) with 3661S thinner is 1/2 the price of Veriprime.  Same basic process:

1) Clean the surface (we washed with water and let dry for a couple of hours in the New Mexico sun).

2) Mix paint/thinner in a ~ 1:2.2 ratio (fairly thin).  Spray 2-3 coats on.

3) Let dry for 2-3 hours

4) Apply spot putty in obvious pinholes


Since we had all the paint gear out, we sprayed the wheel pants as well.


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Last updated: April 03, 2004.
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