While we're all eagerly awaiting some more photos, let me fill in the gaps with some info about Euroair.
I found out about Euroair about a year ago, through a local guy who was looking at having his Cherokee repainted there. I'd checked out their website at the time, and noticed that their prices were quite a bit lower than other paint shops in the area. On the website, there are pictures of numerous past projects, so I looked up a couple of RVs and, through the miracle of the internet, got in tough with the owners. Both had good things to say about both the quality of the work and the experience with the shop. So, I called them up.
The proprietor of the shop is Denis Stefanek. Denis is a Czeck native, and he speaks with the requisite thick accent. During my first phone conversation, Denis impressed me with his down-to-earth, no BS style. He may not win any salesmanship awards, but he is right to the point, and I for one like dealing with people like that. Especially when large sums of my money are involved.
Anyway, the phone call led to a flight over the Reedsburg Airport (C35, only about 82NM from me) over to check out his shop. This was back in late January, and the weather had warmed up to around 8F that day. The week prior it had been cold, so cold in fact that Denis told me that he could not get his shop up to temperature to paint, even with all the heaters going full bore! Life in the upper Midwest...
Anyway, during this first visit, I met Denis and some of his help, got to talk in person and size him up and, most importantly, got to see a couple of examples of his work. My reaction after looking at a couple of airplanes that he painted went something like this- "Well, it probably won't win a Gold Lindy, but it looks better than anything that I could do myself." And, frankly, this was the kind of paint job I was looking for. A good paint job can make a bad airplane look good, but a bad paint job can make a masterpiece look like a mistake. And I had no interest in spending mega kilodollars on paint. My airplane is most definitely a go plane, not a show plane.
Well, at that first meeting, I was impressed enough to sign a contract and pay the $500 deposit. I flew home with a singed contract and a book of paint chips. The start date was scheduled for April 10th, which gave me enough time to take it back home and get most of the annual inspection completed prior to going into the shop.
Due to scheduling issues (mine, not Denis') I delivered the plane about a week early. Denis told me to expect about a 3 week turnaround time (from April 10) and I was somewhat pessimistic about that, but I nonetheless left my baby in his care. That was more of an emotional experience than I care to admit, but I digress.
Fast forward a few weeks. I talked to Denis on Friday May 1st. He was having a bit of a fisheye issue on the fiberglass that fairs the leading edge of the canopy into the glareshield skin. After some discussion, we decided that the cause was likely that I had been cleaning my canopy with Plexus (a great product BTW) for 5 years and 500 hours, and that likely some of the Plexus had gotten onto the fiberglass and was causing the fisheye. Armed with this information, he told me that he would do some more work and make it right. He did tell me that, had he not had this issue, the plane would have likely been done on Saturday 5-2. That is 3 weeks and 1 day for those keeping score at home. The Plexus problem set us back a few days, but that is OK.
The Plexus problem brings up a discussion point. As many of you know, I have been a vocal advocate of not painting your RV prior to flying it. During my flight test period, I found several little places where things rubbed, fiberglass cracked, etc. It took some work to repair and strengthen the effected areas, but if these areas were already painted, it would require much, much more work to repaint and blend in the repaired areas. So, I think you are better off waiting until your flight test period is flown off, then painting.
However, I do acknowledge, more readily than before, that there are strong arguments on the other side. Painting the plane in pieces is much easier than painting in one big chunk. Plus, the longer it is flown, the more chance for contaminants like grease, oil, Plexus etc. to get where they shouldn't be and cause problems. This is one for the neverending debates section, no doubt.
More to follow...
