I was worried that I wouldn't be able to paint the spinner evenly or that I would get runs and dry spots because of the complex shape. I asked several friends for advice and ended up using Daniel's idea. I used scrap wood left over from the canopy frame bending jig to make a box to hold the drill. Then I sanded the top of a screwdriver handle flat and attached the front spinner plate to it with a lag screw. Next, I put double sided tape on the spinner plate to hold it inside the spinner then chucked the screwdriver in the drill. A piece of aluminum angle is screwed across the drill trigger and tightened slowly to adjust the speed. After getting the speed right, it was pretty simple to just hold the paint gun still and spray for one revolution and then move down for each successive pass. If you zoom into the photo, the stripes you see in the middle of the spinner are the reflection of the roof of the paint booth and not runs in the paint.
Yes, I'm building an airplane in my garage. It's a 2 seat side-by-side, 200+ mph, all metal aircraft capable of 6g aerobatics with a range of about 900 miles on one tank of gas getting 25 mpg. It's powered by a traditional 180hp Lycoming just like a Cessna 172. There are over 8000 like mine completed AND flying. This is where I'll document the build for friends and family to see. This isn't meant to be a construction how-to, just a little show-and-tell.
Oh, and to answer the question, "when will it fly?" I'm planning my first flight on Thursday. I'm not saying which week, or which month, or even which year, just Thursday.
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