do most folks repaint the steel frame around the window when redoing their bird or leave it bare steel? feels like a dumb question but most all of the Cessna's I have seen around here just have bare steel. Seems you would want this painted? Either your interior paint color or exterior? Redoing these now ready to put new windows in. Let me know your opinions!

The door windows? Those are the only ones that have a steel surround.
I'm sending my frames out to the powder coater. The outside aluminum pieces will be gull grey and the steel inner piece will be black.
My plane is bare metal so the gull grey blends in nicely.

yea sorry the door windows, the steel frame as you mentioned.

Bagarre wrote:The door windows? Those are the only ones that have a steel surround.
I'm sending my frames out to the powder coater. The outside aluminum pieces will be gull grey and the steel inner piece will be black.
My plane is bare metal so the gull grey blends in nicely.

if just going bare metal why not polish those outer pieces? are you polishing the rest of the airframe or just leaving it a scuffed metal appearance?

I second powder coating the steel frame.

These tend to get a lot of fingerprint action, and cleaning compounds.
All original finshed ones show the ghost of rust.

Easy to powder coat, and economial if you can run them with a color the shop is already running.

--Bill

They would look really nice polished but hard to maintain polished.

I'm painting all the hard spots gull gray (wing roots, bottoms of surfaces, in between hinges...) to make maintaining the plane easier.
It will initially by polished nicely but I plan to let it natural out over time with the occasional brightening before Oshkosh

The inside of the window frame is steel, you should paint or powdercoat it. The outside of the window frame is aluminum and can be left unpainted and polished if you want.

robw56 wrote:The inside of the window frame is steel, you should paint or powdercoat it. The outside of the window frame is aluminum and can be left unpainted and polished if you want.

Ya, knew the frame was steel, had them both removed and the outside halves are aluminum. I just found it odd that all the Cessnas in the local flying club and other various ones I have looked at, the steel frame is unpainted, just bare steel. I ended up painting black. Looks clean and it is protected.

Update: paint going on, very simple al White of sorts and then graphics for now. wings will be hung very soon. After almost 10 years this 170 will fly again.


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delete

kygreen229 wrote:Update: paint going on, very simple al White of sorts and then graphics for now. wings will be hung very soon. After almost 10 years this 170 will fly again.

Nice going!

Guys, need some paint help. Thee is a C185 at my local airport that has a really pretty blue. Finally I called up the place working on it and asked if they could tell me what shade of blue. They said it was Bristol blue but did not have a paint code. I realize now that I need a paint code if I want it anywhere close to the same thing. Any advice how to get a decent match? All as I have is a picture of it and the name Bristol blue..

Want to do wing tips, spinner and rudder then have graphics on the fuselage for now to keep costs down.


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kygreen229 wrote:Any advice how to get a decent match? All as I have is a picture of it and the name Bristol blue..

Did you try to google it grasshopper?

LOL

I believe Bristol Blue is a standard GM paint. Any paint shop should be able to mix it.

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedi ... tol%20Blue

They will also have a paint book with tons of swatches. My local shop is great and they let me borrow their books from time to time to take down to the airport. Make sure whatever you do that you walk outside and look under the sunlight. The fluorescent lights in the shop will skew the color.

Bigrenna wrote:

kygreen229 wrote:Any advice how to get a decent match? All as I have is a picture of it and the name Bristol blue..

Did you try to google it grasshopper?

LOL

I believe Bristol Blue is a standard GM paint. Any paint shop should be able to mix it.

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedi ... tol%20Blue

They will also have a paint book with tons of swatches. My local shop is great and they let me borrow their books from time to time to take down to the airport. Make sure whatever you do that you walk outside and look under the sunlight. The fluorescent lights in the shop will skew the color.

I did google it haha. Like the guy said at the paint shop there can be different Bristol blues. Might have to try another paint shop and/or just get something that seems close and go with it.


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Can you get permission to borrow an inspection cover and take it to the paint shop? Let them scan it with their fancy camera?

denalipilot wrote:Can you get permission to borrow an inspection cover and take it to the paint shop? Let them scan it with their fancy camera?

That's my next step if I want to go that far. Feel kinda like a dummy but it's a good looking blue on that plane.


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kygreen229 wrote:

robw56 wrote:The inside of the window frame is steel, you should paint or powdercoat it. The outside of the window frame is aluminum and can be left unpainted and polished if you want.

Ya, knew the frame was steel, had them both removed and the outside halves are aluminum. I just found it odd that all the Cessnas in the local flying club and other various ones I have looked at, the steel frame is unpainted, just bare steel. I ended up painting black. Looks clean and it is protected.

Would love to see a pic of how your window frames came out

denalipilot wrote:Can you get permission to borrow an inspection cover and take it to the paint shop? Let them scan it with their fancy camera?

FWIW... I have tried using the scanner and it never really works right. The best method is the old skool swatches. Bring the painted piece and just go thru the books to find it.

Bigrenna wrote:

denalipilot wrote:Can you get permission to borrow an inspection cover and take it to the paint shop? Let them scan it with their fancy camera?

FWIW... I have tried using the scanner and it never really works right. The best method is the old skool swatches. Bring the painted piece and just go thru the books to find it.

Strange, I've done two cowls and they came out perfect. Brought them down to the paint store, they scanned it and mixed it right there.


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Ended up asking for an inspection panel cover but didn't want to leave it with the paint shop for a day or two to scan it and mix it because I told the shop I would be back with their cover in an hour...so I ended up going through their books and found one that looked pretty close in the light. Turns out it was called "Pepsi blue." It'll look blue when it's done [emoji12]

Thanks for the input guys.


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