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Schweizer SGS 2-33A  N2609H was purchased as an investment project. Before us, it had been frequently used by a family of cropdusters at our airport. One of them is/was even a glider instructor! As far as we can tell, it was dismantled about 5 years back to be recovered and then sat in their hangar - a stalled project.  Upon purchasing the glider we began by repairing a few areas on the tube fuselage where corrosion had been a problem. After this we covered the fuselage and other fabric components, opting for Poly-Tone, a semi-gloss which is easily repairable, since this aircraft is primarily used for glider training. In addition to this, we had to do some repair work on the nose cone area prior to priming or painting since some previous repairs were damaged in the paint - stripping process.  All in all, the hardest part of this project was stripping the huge 55-foot wingspan worth of wing. In the years prior, this glider had been originally painted white with red stripes. This original paint scheme was done with urethane paint which can be a bear to strip. On top of that, the cropdusters had decided a few years back to spray the entire glider in an enamel yellow. So, once you would apply paint stripper, the yellow would immediately come up, leaving the white barily touched. Many, many hours later, after stripping, scraping, scrubbing and stripping again, the wings were finally bare. The patriotic paint scheme was developed from many photos of other gliders, as well as some creative ideas from my brother. We used an expensive two-part, self-etching primer underneath a Poly-Fiber brand enamel for the wings, and, of course, used the Poly-Fiber process and coating for the fabric covered parts.  The interior was cleaned out and painted with an enamel light grey which gave it a cleaner, more modern look, compared to the light brown that had been in there previously. In addition, the instrument panel was stripped and re-painted a flat black. We had to overhaul the compass due to leaking seals, but chose to hold-off replacing or overhauling the old-style wind up clock for cost and practicallity issues. All four seat cushions were replaced which made a huge overall difference to the look of the interior. The previous material on the cushions were badly cracked and were a badly faded red. What a difference! N2609H is currently tied down at our grass airport, waiting for a buyer. *Additional information: 11/1/07 - To update the condition of N2609H, the following are a few issues that have popped up. We found that using Poly-Tone is undesireable because though it is easier to repair, it is much more suspectible to fungus/mold and more difficult to clean off. After several months of sitting in a hot, damp environment (Florida), we have found that some of the steel parts have started rusting. In addition, the enamel has lost its' original high gloss and is now a satin gloss. Overall, we are somewhat dissappointed with the results, even though they were accelerated by the Florida heat and humidty. Because of this, on our other projects we have been careful to use AeroThane, which keeps its' high gloss and is highly durable. Also, we have used, wherever possible, stainless steel fasteners or we have at least applied a rust prevention coating over cadmium plated fasteners. We have had much better success with these measures as is shown in the next project we did: N2679E. Overall, N2609H is still a neat little bird, but she is not the pristine beauty she once was.
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