Repaint And Thin No More Repaint And Thin No More There is a story about a cheap skate painter who was hired to paint a church. He charged for the paint to paint the church, but thinned the paint multiple times in order to cheat the church. When he was done painting the church with the very thin paint, rain washed the paint off the church. When it was done raining he heard a voice say, "Repaint and thin no more."  This is a play on words from a story of in John 8:11. Hello, this is Steven writing. This is also a story of repainting. However, we thinned no more than was necessary so the paint finish was not like the texture of an orange peal(If you don't thin enough then the paint dries with the texture of an orange peal). After being in Bolivia for eight years the paint on the Mooney was in very bad shape. Corrosion was setting in with the protective coating of the paint missing in many locations of the exterior of the airplane. We could not let this continue. It was a big job to repaint the plane and remove the landing gear to repaint it too. However, it would have been a much bigger job if we had let the corrosion run it's destructive course. So we dove into this large job. The Mooney as its landing gear was being taken off One of the frustrating things that we learned was that there is no paint shop that has sand blasters here in Santa Cruz. I built a sand blaster out of a soda bottle. It worked well to remove paint, dirt, grease, and light rust in hard to clean corners in the landing gear parts. However, this sand blaster was empty of sand very quickly. So I built a 2L soda bottle sand blaster. It also worked well. It lasted about four times longer between refills of sand as opposed to the .5L soda bottle sand blaster. However, the sand did not last very long at all even with four times the amount of sand. It took to long to refill the sand thought the small opening of a soda bottle. Also, there was no control on the mixture of sand and air being blasted. To much sand was being blasted out, and the sand was hitting the sand that was bouncing off what we were trying to blast. It worked well, but still took to long. We needed more control over the mixture of sand and air being blasted. Timothy was willing to help refill soda bottles with sand, but it still took to long. So I built this sand blaster out of five gallon grease bucket with valves to control the mixture of sand and air. It did not work well at all. When air pressure was applied to this sand blaster it blew up. So I built this sand blaster using an air tank from a junk air compressor and it worked well. It had a large enough sand capacity and valves to control it so some work could get done between refills. The wing all primed and ready for the paint The first layer of paint on the fuselage Another layer of paint going on. It is going to look like a brand new used airplane! Left: Johannes                                                 Right: Gadiel These two young men have been doing the work painting the Mooney. They are doing  a great job!  Johannes is from Austria, and Gadiel from Bolivia. The tail number ready to be painted on Even the cowling is getting attention with some fiberglass repair  Above: Before being cleaned and repainted. Above: After being cleaned and painted. After this came the part of the job that was like a big 3D puzzle. Putting it all back together. The newly painted landing gear being put back on. It was painted with a special bake on paint so as to be more durable. Above: The nose landing gear. The puzzle going back together. It was right in the middle of this job that I had to leave and go to Guyana to work on James Ash's plane. So I left the job of painting with Johannes and Gadiel. A little mechanic desperate to work on something, finally settled with trying to fix the wheel barrow. Paint stripes being added to the white base coat. Johannes uncovering the tail number. Finishing adding the stripes to the engine cowl after the airplane was sitting on it's landing gear again. The finished job. I finished applying the clear coat a few days after James was born. So this is one reason why we have been busy over the past number of months, maintaining the airplanes. Aside from fabricating the sand blaster I had so fabricate a few other specialty tools for the landing gear installation and rigging. We thank every one who supports us so we can do this work. We want to thank those who support us financially and those who support us in prayer. God bless, Steven, Helen, Timothy, and James Wilson We are volunteer missionaries entirely funded by donations. 100% of your donations go directly to us and our project in Bolivia. If you'd like to be a part, we accept tax-deductible donations through Gospel Ministries International, Inc. Donate via: 1.  PayPal  (timt@gospelministry.org) 2.  Check:  P.O. Box 506, Collegedale, TN 37315 With either method, please include a note stating:  "Bolivia Aviation Services - Wilson" Thanks for your support!