Fiberglass and Paint

The RV-6A is NOT an "all metal" airplane. Here's the result of months of fitting, layups, sanding, and filling.

Here's the installed Van's nose gear fairing. It wasn't of the high quality that Tracy Saylor's gear leg fairings were. On the Van's nose gear fairing the rear edges of fairing didn't meet up very well (appeared that portions of the rear lip were missing on one side). Still, it was far easier than doing an "on the gear leg" wet layup.

The nose gear fairing came without instructions. Van's drawing appeared to indicated that the upper portion of the fairing was to be secured only by a wet layup attached to the bottom of the lower cowl. I didn't like that approach (wet layups suck). Instead, I riveted a tab on each side of the fairing, and clamped the tabs to the nose gear with a hose clamp. This is the same method that Tracy Saylor shows with his main gear fairings, which I have.


This is a 12 gallon fuel cell from Summit Racing. It cost about $100. You are looking down on the baggage area floor. The cell is held in place with 6 aluminum angle brackets and two seat belts (only one is shown). Additional seat belt hard points were installed in the aft edge of the baggage area to attach to the infant seat or to restrain this fuel cell. The fuel cell is plumbed into the "off" port of the stock Van's fuel valve. The fuel cell's electric fuel level sensor is the same as is used in the wing tanks, and shares a gauge with one of the wing tanks.

These filters form the intake for my paint booth (in our one-car garage). The exhaust is via a fan mounted in a window on the side of the garage.

The fuselage is masked off prior to painting the interior

I did not remove the plumbing or wiring prior to painting. I just masked it off and painted. That worked fine.

Here's the interior after the grey (Rustoleum - easy to touch up) was applied. The sub panel was later painted flat black to match the instrument panel sections.


Lt Col Ralph Strother helps me rivet the fuselage forward skin on after the interior painting is done and all the plumbing and wiring are double checked. Bucking these rivets was made much easier by removal of the rudder pedals (which were at Van's for the gusset upgrade).