In the excitement of putting your freshly painted aircraft back together, there is one tiny bit of hardware that should give you pause: the plastic washer. It is a two-bit item that can save your $10,000 paint job. A plastic washer placed under a removable fastener will keep the fastener from twisting or tearing the expensive (or inexpensive) paint by isolating the rotating fastener from the soft paint.
Plastic washers are entry-level washers, not skilled enough to perform critical structural tasks, so a trip to a local hardware store is probably all that’s needed to get you moving forward. Unless you are like me, then it will be three trips to the hardware store. Look for thin plastic washers, not the common 1/16-inch thick, as there is no need to draw attention to them.
With the buffeting that happens in flight and the elasticity of plastic it should include careful inspections periodically to ensure fasteners haven’t backed off or come loose.