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Landing lights

Ron B.

Well Known Member
I had not thought about painting the interior cavity arround the landing lights until I got to the step where Van's says if your plans are to paint the cavity now is the time to do so.
I ordered some epoxy primer but haven't had much thought on final color. Van's recommends flat black or gloss white. I would be happy with gloss white if I had the paint I plan on painting the wings exterior with purchased but that will be down the road quite a while so I have no plans on getting final paint at this time.
Will flat black look good on white wings?
Thanks Ron
 
Other idea

What about polishing it? I would think a final polish before assembly and it "should" stay shiny right? I don't think I have seen polished Al next to any color that looks bad. Ideas?
 
No paint, No Primer

If we are talking about the leading edge light cavities, I left mine un-primed / unpainted. I taped them off during the primer session.. Just shiney bare aluminum... Thought it might look cool & different since I haven't seen any left bare :cool:
 
Black

I painted the inside around my leading edge landing lights black. If someone looks in all they should be able to see is the twinkle of LED lights.
 
Hi Ron, I'm at this step now. What did you end up doing here? Do you have any pictures you care to share?

Of course, anyone else please do chime in with your comments and pictures.

Thanks.
 
I just used a flat black paint. No pictures, I'm not a photo guy. I haven't worked on my project for months. Patiently waiting for the tail to hopefully be shipped out next week. I was expecting to hear of tail kits being shipped on here or even some receiving their kits by now.
 
What about polishing it? I would think a final polish before assembly and it "should" stay shiny right? I don't think I have seen polished Al next to any color that looks bad. Ideas?

I think polishing before assembly is a good idea. I read a very informative article in Kitplanes or Sport Aviation a few years back about polishing that you might be able to trackdown. The author made the suggestion that polishing before assembly would be less labor intensive and prevent any damage that might result from applying too much pressure. I polished my first RV-12 after assembly, and wished I had polished before assembly during the entire process.

Apologies for the thread drift.
 
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I just used a flat black paint. No pictures, I'm not a photo guy. I haven't worked on my project for months. Patiently waiting for the tail to hopefully be shipped out next week. I was expecting to hear of tail kits being shipped on here or even some receiving their kits by now.

Anything particular about the paint I should know or just run on down to home depot? What about rustoleum spray paint?
 
Any update on what people are using? I've been Epoxy priming (Akzo) the interior parts to date and looking for suggestions for the light cavity area. Any pictures would be great.

Thanks Jim
Oshkosh bound next week :D
 
I would think that reflective paint would be counter-productive since it may interfere with the beam pattern of the light. I had Obrien tips with lights on my Cherokee 180 and I painted the inside of the light cavity with semi-gloss black engine paint and it looked great for many years. I will probably do the same with my -14 wings.
 
I masked mine off and sprayed them white. White will reflect more light. Whether this matters or not is still to be determined. I still haven't decided what to do with the brackets themselves so for now they are just bare aluminum.
 
I intend to polish the whole thing. Looking inside of a blinker or a car/truck tail light, the convex cup is chromed all over and this is done on purpose; to boost the light output.

My two cents.
 
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