Just wondering what your best finish was.  I'll speak for me and grandpa.  My best finished airplane is my Ares, and grandpa's up to this point is his P-40.  If he buffs out his new weapon, or revived weapon for next year, it will look absolutely great (elliptical wing plane, and I can count up about 2 flaws on the fuse, but they are very small).

I remember getting 19 for my USA-1, but I didn't think it was my best finish. The one I got the most compliments for was the Novi I built a couple of years ago. It was interesting.

Probably my best finish was the second Bill Simon's Shoestring I built. It was pretty cool - shame it didn't fly worth spit.

My best finish was on my '95 Nats airplane, a 60" span Southwick Skylark that I stretched in size to be my first piped ship (O.S. .46VF, Smith/Werwage pipe).  It was in the front row (19 points) and was pretty much of a charge to me to have the airplane there.  However, it took so much time to put the finish on and weighed too much so I made a conscious decision not to work that hard on a finish again.  My Impact was a 16 point airplane at the '98 Nats and was a much better flying airplane.  Always trade-offs...

A little story about the weight of the Skylark.  Immediately after the appearance judging I was carrying the Skylark out the side door of the armory to put it in Kirk Mullinix's van.  As I went out the door I heard Kirk holler at me to bring the airplane over to where he and a bunch of guys were standing and sitting on the Sherman tank that was on display at the armory so he could get some photos.  Feeling pretty good about it I carried the Skylark over to where Bob Gieseke, Bob Whitely, Gene Martine, and several others were grouped by the Sherman tank.  Kirk, as I approached, said "put it right there so I can get a picture of the two tanks together".  I thought Bob Gieseke was going to fall off of the Sherman tank laughing.  Sheesh!  I resolved right then to never build an airplane that heavy again.

Matt,

Personally, I think there's a curse on it. Something is misaligned, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what it is. I messed with it for most of a year trying to get it to fly decently and finally gave up and stuck it in the rack. I may get back to it if I can come up with another idea to try. Sigh...

The first one I built flew great.

All the usual stuff checks out ok?

Randy,

The Sabre is spectacular. High class stuff.

My new plane may be my best from an overall perspective. It may the first plane in a long time that hits all points for finish. It looks OK, has some style and is light all at the same time.

Well, I started the buffing out process on the new plane last night. I really got a lot of orange peel because of the low temp and high humidity I was shooting at, but preliminary results look pretty good (if I can manage to avoid sanding through the clear). If true, this will probably be my best finish to date. Simple but hopefully effective paint scheme and reasonable execution. While it's not even in the same league as something like Randy's Sabre Jet, it looks to be pretty decent for a less than 7oz finish. It looks like I might (for once) actually hit under the projected weight. A small miracle, that.

Randy, thanks for the kind words, the Sabre really turns me on, so I went a little farther then I usually would.

Warren, thanks for the picture again, I don't have any shots of it in its glory, just some bad shots I did in the evening light and after it got all faded out. Funny, seeing it in its's first season I am surprized by how vivid the colors actually were then, wish they'd have stayed like that.

In previous  threads, you were refinishing that plane, but haven't  seen it if you finished it, if you did.