I had a difficult decision yesterday. I wanted to fly but my boots needed some TLC. Not the boots I wear, actually I don't wear boot, the boots in question are the De-Ice boots. This is my first plane with boots and when I got the plane they were nice and shiny. The problem is they don't stay that way.
I had last serviced them too long ago, you are supposed to do it every 6 months but I was a bit behind. The problem was summer, it's darn hot in Florida. So I kept pushing it back, and then I flew through rain a bunch and frankly they were looking pretty dull. Between the heat and rain I had ample excuses to keep putting it off but Friday was a bit cooler and not rainy in the morning.
I headed out to do the dirty deed, It's a lot of work. The previous owner was nice enough to gift me the PBS boot products needed. The two bottles of Prep and Sealant run about $120 but they do last 5+ cleaning cycles. Step one is to mask the boots with painters tape. This is way more time consuming than you think. Doing the underside solo is tough and to do it right you want only the front of the tape to stick. You want to then fold the tape back so that any drips run down the tape and not back onto the paint. The prep is bad for paint.
With everything prepped, you start by applying the Prep chemical with a sponge and then let it sit for 3-5 minutes. Wear gloves for this step, it's not skin friendly. You then need to work off all the old sealant. You do this with a yellow/green Scotch Brite sponge. Use the green side. Once you think it's clean wash the surface with clean water and remove the black residue with the yellow side. You will see white areas of residual sealant and you then repeat the process until you have a smooth dull black surface.
A final rinse and dry making sure that when wiped there is no residual dust on the surface. The last part is oddly fun. You need a lint free cloth and you dampen it with the sealant. You only need a few drops at a time. You then wipe it on, going only one direction. Basically you are painting the boots. Each coat creates a bit more shine and coats can go on as soon as the last is dry which should be a minute or so if you apply very thinly.
It takes 3-5 coats, I usually do an extra on the leading edge, the bottom seems happy with 3 while the top gets 4. After that, remove the tape and you have shiny boots. Now do that for the 7 boot segments and you are done (vertical tail, 2 horizontal tail, 2 inner wing root, 2 outer wing).
The scrubbing stage is dirty so you need to clean up as you go but in the end you have some sharp boots. After all that work I was hesitant to fly until I gave the chemicals more time to cure so even though the weather was good, I headed home.
Today I got to take out my shiny boots and they looked good. Just enjoyed flying about an hour around town. At home it was clear but North and West overcast. It is sort of fun to fly over an undercast, the forecast was saying there might be lower clouds forming so I placed an IFR plan on file just in case but in the end did not need it, likely because I prepared.
The weather was so good after so many days of rain that the airport was crazy busy. Checking in with tower I was number 6 for the runway, I had to slow from 160 to a bit over a 100 but the sequenced worked well. Greg our tower manager was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking’ contest but amazingly he kept everyone moving.
