A-7 restoration update 9-16-13 Almost done!

[Clifford Bossie]

The painting of War Eagles A-7E has been very slow due to having to perform all work outside. During the winter we just never saw those normal days when the temp was in the 70's. The Spring has been very windy (more so than usual) and that trend appears to continue into the summer. Yesterday I spent most of the morning laying out the national insignia placement on the wings in pencil. During that time the wind was 15 - 20 with gusts to 30. Today I masked and painted and the wind was only 10 -15. It still seemed to constantly tear at my masking. At least it was warm: low 90s.

First I layed out the masks, then painted the backdround colors. White for the underside, gull gray for the topside.

After that had dried I painted the white portions. Automotive pen striping was used for the curves. Tape and paper for the rest.







After the white dried I masked and painted the blue, but even with all the preperation the &^%$*#@ wind still tore at the masking and paint found its way under the masking. Oh well, it is not as bad as it looks and I found when I painted the fuselage insignia the touch up was not too bad.





(Some of the blue is lighter, but that is simply where it has not completely cured.)

The fuselage insignia were painted last week and touched up today.

Before:



After:







There is still a lot of work to be done, but for the first time in a long time I feel like I am getting somewhere.

Last edited by Clifford Bossie on Thu Sep 19, 2013 4:15 pm, edited 7 times in total.

[Fouga23]

Looks nice

[DH82EH]

Clearly it must be frustrating in less than ideal conditions. Don't get discouraged, it looks good.
We are always our own worst critic

Thanks for sharing, Clifford

Andy Scott

[Pat Carry]

Good job there!!!

[Clifford Bossie]

It what seems like a glacial pace, I am finally making headway on the A-7. Yesterday I was not able to do any painting as I was asked to give a tour of the museum. It turns out that first group was made up of people in the Wounded Warrior program. That was actually a fun tour and I did not mind spending time away from the airplane. I then had a tour of school kids and again that was fun. So today back in the sun...



(Sorry about the quality of the photos, I left my Nikon at home and had to settle for my phone.)

One of the problems I have run into is that while the standard lettering is of the "USN Long Beach" variety, much of the other, like the ship's name, is unique. After spending fruitless hours searching for a font that was close I finally wound up creating one on fontstruct.com. I named that font "Forrestal". Today came the placing of the masks, which are not exactly true, in fact a bit crooked. But I remember something one of our volunteers pointed out in the photos that Bruce Trombecky sent me: the USS FORRESTAL is not straight in many of the pics!



By the way, the volunteer is named Frank Arrufat. He is ex Airdale, retired TWA captain and spent about thirty years on an F4U project that now flies as Kathleen. That project was over 95% when Frank sold it.

[Fouga23]

Looks great!

[Clifford Bossie]

An artist (loosely used term in this case) rendering of what she should look like:

[Clifford Bossie]

[Ken]

Really coming together! Thanks for sharing your work.

[Clifford Bossie]

Today I was able to add the blue and gold striping on the edge of the large blue stripe. I also added the aircraft number to the flaps. Tomorrow I hope to paint the rescue arrows and maybe the shadow to the nose number. Working 40 hours a week and then spending a good amount of my days off at the museum is killing me. Hopefully I can add the ram head to the tail very soon!









As a comparison:



And what she looked like Monday afternoon:



Gee, anybody have a spare TF-41, MERs, Sidewinder rails laying around?

[K5DH]

That SLUF's looking good!

Funny... we have a complete TF-41 sitting on its dolly in our engine display area (on loan from USN).

[DH82EH]

You've come a long way Clifford.
Every little bit adds up. She's looking good!

Andy Scott

[Clifford Bossie]

Small steps. Only a few things done today. Ed Bird is resizing the ram head to the correct size, but it will probably be next week before it is ready to test.





Wednesday and Thursday I think I might try some of the stencilling: "NO STEP, NO PUSH", that sort of thing.

[Clifford Bossie]

Today we taped up a cut out of the ram head to test the dimensions. We are still a tad small and Ed will rework the dims in his computer. The proportions are right, just a little small:



I managed to add the "shadow" to the nose numbers (odd to refer to white as a shadow). Just a few minutes work, but man does it stand out!:



I finished up the RESCUE arrow. There is a little touch up needed. Mine are made from masks and painted while the originals were vinyl stickers. The yellow for the canopy release and covers over the emergency acces really ad a lot.:







Hopefully next week I can tackle the ram head. Also needed are the designation "VA-83", the "AA" with a blue lightening bolt and the "10" atop the fin cap. The double "A" represents the Forrestal's airwing; CVW-17 and the blue for the third squadron within the airwing. There is also a ton of stencilling to add.

[peter]

Looking good! How complete is the cockpit and does she have a seat fitted? Also is the canopy glass faded?