This photo shows the steel parts before going to sandblasting
and painting. I fabricated and welded all the metal parts and
have a boo-boo bin full of rejects to prove it. Certain specialized
operations I farmed out. These include heat-treating the nose
gear strut, main gear jackscrews, and main gear pins. It also
included vacuum brazing the main gear oleo struts and their subsequent
chrome and grind operation.
I had all the metal parts professionally painted because I
do not have the equipment and because painting is an inherently
toxic process. (I've already had one run-in with epoxy dust that
gave me a bad case of contact dermatitis.) The aluminum parts
were painted either matte black or white and used a polyurethane
spray process. Steel parts were powder-coated with one of the
two colors mentioned previously.
In getting the parts painted, I discovered some interesting
information about powder coating. It is great process but requires
fairly high temperatures (400°F). This is no problem for
steel, but it is for aluminum. A Boeing engineer stated that
his company will not powder-coat structural aluminum parts because
the bake temperature will affect the material's temper.
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