You guys will think I'm nuts...

[Michael Carter]

This afternoon my next door neighbor applied a spray-on bed liner coating made by Dupli-Color.

I said hi and wandered over for a peek at his handi-work.

The second I saw the finish and texture of this bed liner coating I knew that was what I wanted on the glareshield of my 727.

It's flat, coverage is excellent (better than anything out of a can) and I can't describe the texture. It's smooth, but it's not. It's almost like a cast iron finish, but much smoother.

The stuff is a polymer (plastic) and dries to the touch in five minutes. The down side is that it's eight buck a can. You should be able to do the entire top and the underside back to the MIP if you budget it out right.

I'll post a picture in a bit. It's still outside on the 'bucks.

[Joe Cygan]

Of course you’re nuts, you’re a cockpit builder.

I can’t wait to see it!

[Michael Carter]

Duh, I knew that!

Here's a couple after setting it in position:

[Joe Cygan]

Man, that looks really good!

[Michael Carter]

Thanks. It looks a lot better in person.

If I'd done a better job of filling in the wood instead of just sanding it down, it would be even better.

The nice thing is, in use, you're not staring right down on top of it.

[Michael Carter]

I redid the glareshield properly this time. I sanded the whole thing down with my orbital sander, filled in all of the woodgrain with glazing compound and then reshot it.

I'm going to spray another coat to even it out some. This stuff is a bit hard to control unlike paint. It goes an very heavy in a very short period of time.

The final coat is going to be more or less of a misting coat to even out the finish and texture.

[BlackWidow]

That looks good. I will have to look into that for my cessna.

[jmig]

Boeing, did you make or buy the Wheel well annunciator in your cockpit? If purchased, where? If built how? I need to make or get four; two fire, Caution and Canopy Open annunciators for my cockpit.

[Michael Carter]

It came with the glareshield fire rack (P2).

I did make the ENG FIRE annunciator that is not seen in the photo. I had to remove the cushion trim strip that this indicator is mounted to.

They are easily made though using 5"x7" aluminum roof flashing pieces. Cut correctly and folded up and glued at the edges with an adhesive for aluminum, they look fairly authentic.

For the base I used an extra Korry marker beacon tripple lamp set-up. I cut one of the lamp bases off so I had only two and dis-assembled the Korry light caps so I had the barrels that would fit in the bases.

The barrels were glued in using JB Weld.

The lens is two piece with the back one being painted with an automotive lacquer and the top piece was the letters painted on.

The top frame was cut from sheet styrene.

[jmig]

Thanks, that was very informative. You do very good work. You are obviously a craftsman.