I forgot to come back to the list and post my results with doing some touch-up work on the ARHS' F3 #56.

Back in late September, we did some touch up work to repair holes which had been cut in the noses of both #56 and #57 when the pilots had to be removed for some wheel work.

The Centari paint jobs were about 10 yrs old and had faded a good deal. I was able to buff out some of the surrounding areas to try and match the gloss of the new paint. It wasn't perfect, but acceptable enough.

The one problem we had was that the new blue paint didn't quite match the old, although we used the same paint codes. As such touch-up projects go, there are other areas which now look worse and must be dealt with next year.

Thanks to those people who responded to my prior posts for help. All your help was greatly appreciated.

We haven't got the pix on our website yet, but I will get in touch with my friend who took some pictures of the process and see if we can get them on our website.

If you visit the site now, look at the lead pic of the F3's and you can see the original hole on the fireman's side, just above the pilot, and just inside of the orange/blue dividing line.

There was another hole in the pilot itself, but you can't see that because it of the shadows.

Thanks for listening to this longer than anticipated post.

Regards,
Walter ARHS 1st VP

http://arhs.railfan.net
hoffmannwj@nswccd.navy.mil