It is advised to obtain the Poly Fiber booklet for theier asking price of $10.00 before proceeding with any covering of painting. Their book, "How To Cover An Aircraft Using the Poly-Fiber System" is available at Poly Fiber's web site, PolyFiber.com, or from a Poly Fiber dealership.

Using a 3 to 4 inch brush, brush on your first coat of Poly Brush primer. The first Poly Brush coat must be pushed through the fabric to encapsulate the weave as no paint product will adhere to the fabric. It should be applied untill it appears 'wet' and no pinholes are evident (there may be a few turn up later). Allow to fully dry before continuing. This is perhaps the simplest step of the entire painting process. This will be the first step in the painting process for the wings, tail feathers and fuselage.

USE CAUTION: Using 400 grit wet & dry sand paper to lightly sand the Poly Brush coated surfaces. Easy, don't sand through the fabric! DON'T OVER SAND! The surface should be noticeably smoother when finished. Watch for hidden bracing, rivets or wires under the fabric surface that may cause you to sand through the fabric. Lead with your opposite hand while you sand to detect any hidden stuff before it's too late.

Adding inspection rings to the wings and fuselage are highly recommended to access hard to get at areas for maintenance. If you add inspection rings to your Challenger, it is best to do so after you have applied your first brushed on Poly Brush coat to your fabric.

1. Once you have determined where you want an inspection ring, set the ring on the fabric and, using a pencil, trace the inside of the ring onto the fabric.
2. Now, measure 2 inches out from the outside of the ring and make a mark with the pencil. This will be the measurement for making a circle with your pencil around the outside of the ring for a cover patch.
3. Using scrap fabric covering material, cut a circle about 2 inches larger then the ring. You will need to soak the patches you just cut out in Poly Brush, then hang up to dry. These patches will be used to cover and secure the ring in place on your wing or fuselage fabric.
4. Using Poly-Tak Cement, apply a coat of the cement to the inside area of the ring and seat firmly to the fabric, matching it up with where you traced the center of the inside of the ring and let dry.
5. Once the plastic ring has bonded to the fabric, use a sharp knife to cut out and remove the fuselage or wing fabric from the inside area of the ring.
6. Apply a wet coat of Poly Brush to the outer 2 inch circle and ring. While wet, lay the circle patch you made onto the wet Poly Brush coat and apply another wet coat of Poly Brush using a 2 inch brush. Work the Poly Brush through the patch material and into the fabric underneath. Be persistent in getting the patch material to firmly stick down to the plastic ring.
7. When the Poly Brush is dry, cut out the center of the patch at about 1 inch from the inside of the ring. You will now want to cut that one inch overhang area into tabs, (shown in the drawing to the left), by cutting "V" notches in the 1 inch overhang.
8. Again, apply a wet coat of Poly Brush to the underside of the tabs and fold under the ring, adhering them to the underside of the ring and wing or fuselage covering material. This will make an envelope effect around the ring to fully secure the ring to the fabric covering.

Before continuing on to the remaining painting process, you need to prepare the wing ribs for riviting and finish it off with 2 inch bias tape. For this proceedure, see our build web page entitled,

A 20 gallon, 115 volt air compressor works great for this purpose. It is highly recommended to add a moisture trap filter in-line with the air hose at the compressor. Set the air hose pressure at around 30/35 psi and your spray gun at 24 psi.

The Poly Fiber manual recommends using a 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper to do a wet sand of the painted surfaces, then use an acrylic cleaner (a prep cleaner) before applying a new coat of paint. Again, you may wish to "VERY LIGHTLY" sand the painted finish to smooth out dust trapped in the painted surface between each coat. Remember to be very careful when sanding over any hard surface below the fabric.

You will need to spray a minimum of two cross coats of Poly Brush for a rich coating before going onto painting with Poly Spray (UV Blocker).

Three cross coats of Poly Spray will be needed for a rich and complete coating before going onto painting with your final color paint.

Three cross coats of your final color will be needed for a rich and complete coating before going onto painting with your final color paint.

There are two ways to add striping to your Challenger, either paint your striping or use aircraft decal stick on striping.

A "high quality" masking tape and rolled heavy brown painters masking paper are available from a standard building supply store. Scotch® #471 Series, 1/4 inch "BLUE" Plastic Fine Line Tape. The Scotch® Fine Line Tape is usually avalable at most auto supply stores.

This Johnson Level & Tool Magnetic Torpedo Laser Level was found at Lowe's Building supply for $34.98. However, there is a less expensive one available, I believe by Black & Decker. The builder built a 2"x2" wooden tripod which was about 8 foot tall, drilled a 1/2 inch hole diagonally through the top of the 2"x2" upright and tapped in a 1/2 inch by 1-1/2 foot steel rod into the hole. The "V" cut, magnetic laser was then magnetically placed onto the steel rod to project the fanned laser light diagonally across the length of the wing. This provided a perfectly straight line across a curved surface in which to follow with high grade masking tape.

Taping off for painting the stripes. How in the world do you ever get the tape straight when it runs a long distance and over very curved area like the top, front of the wing?

1. When projecting the laser light across your wing, add at least 1/8 inch outside the area you wish to paint and mask it off.
2. Now, using the rolled brown masking paper and masking tape, tape the paper to the center of the masking tape you already applied to the wings surface.
3. Remember the Scotch® #471 Series, 1/4 inch "BLUE" Plastic Fine Line Tape? This will be the tape you will be using as the paint edge tape, not the masking tape. Once you have both sides taped off with the masking tape and paper, reset the laser for about 1/8 inch in from the masking tape. Now, apply the Scotch® plastic fine line tape, half on the masking tape and half on the wings surface. This is your paint line. (See photo to right)

This is the easiest part so far. Just get good coverage of your paint when painting the stripe. Be carful not to apply too heavy a coat wich may cause some runs. Now, watch the Scotch® plastic fine line tape edge for any bubbling or lifting caused by the MEK base in the paint. If the tape starts to lift along the painted edge, you will need to remove it "IMMEDIATELY" or any wet paint will wick under its edge. Once removed, the paint should not run.