Masking the lower left wing, Finishing the silver on the cowling, painting the canopy metal

Today I got quite a bit of work acomplished. I started off by moving the upper wing out of the paint booth and hanging it to continue curing. I dropped the lower left wing down onto the saw horses. I attached the lower left aileron and started laying some tape lines for the lower wing. I simply laid down a straight line of 3/4″ fine-line down the edge of the leading edge. I then free-handed the radius to the tip. The masking was A lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I then measured along the rear spar root to the tip and got 90″ so I divided that by 6 and got my invasion strip increment of 15″. I then taped the lines inside (where it would stay white).

After I laid out the lines. I thought I better get started on the engine cowling silver stripe so that it could cure a while so that I could move it out of booth to paint something else. I remasked the lines and then masked off the white, sanded it down, and then took it into the booth for some paint. I mixed up some silver and shot both cowlings. about 30-40 minutes later I pulled the fine line tapes to allow the paint to roll over to a smooth line.

While those dried I continued working on the lower wing by flipping it over and laying out the line for the top surface. Again easier than I thought and free handing it was the way to go.

while the cowling dried I worked on masking the lower and upper surface areas that were going to stay white and silver. (sorry no picture for the upper surface.

After the cowlings had dried for about 4 hours I pulled the masking material and hung them on the fuselage carefully as the paint was still slightly soft, dry to the touch but was still curing. Man, she really is coming together.

After all that I decided it was high time to paint the canopy metal parts blue so I scuffed the primer with some scotch brite and hung them up in the booth and shot the blue onto them.

Time spent today 10 hours
Total time spent 1338 hours

Re top coating the lower left aileron

So I sanded down the aileron to get it smooth again. The Top coat sands easily with the 320 grit open coat. I then got it back in the paint booth this time I mixed a bit more paint and started shooting. This time I slowed my travel speed down on all coats which used a bit more paint. By the third coat I had a great smooth shine going and by the end of the 4 coat I had a fantastic looking finish.

The next day It has flowed out even more and was a mirror finish. I am really excited because it was really not hard to paint and get a great finish with a very small amount of practice.

Time spent today 3 hours
Total time spent 730 hours

Aileron filling roll up post

This post covers Monday – Wednesday 25-27 Jul 2011

25 JUL 2011
Since the lower right aileron was filled up to the brush I used the 320 grit open coat sand paper and “wiped” and bumps off the surface and I wiped and sprayed that down with air hose and terry towel. I got it into the paint booth for its first cross coat of filler. I decided to spray this one horizontally laying on some wood strips between boxes which works pretty good but you have to wait for the coat to dry so that you can flip it and spray the other side so it takes a little longer. While that was drying I moved on to the upper right aileron vacuum, clean with the cleaner, rinse with fresh water, iron the tapes then apply the first brush coat of the filler. By the time that was done I was able to go bake in and spray the other side of the lower right aileron. Once that was done I was able to flip the brushed aileron and brush the first coat on the bottom side of the upper right aileron. After that coat dried I was able to brush the cross coat on both sides of the aileron.

26 JUL 2011

The fresh sprayed lower right aileron was then sanded lightly as to be very careful not to go through the filler coats. It was pretty hard to get it smooth at this point and my fingers got pretty tired. After it was sanded I wiped and sprayed air to clean and got it back in to the paint booth. This time I got the upper right aileron wiped down with 320 open coat and took it into the booth with me and mearely traded off on each one until there was 1 cross coat on the upper right and two cross coats on the lower right. While the spray was drying I worked on the upper left by cleaning, ironing and then brushed 1 cross coat of the filler.

27 JUL 2011

I wasn’t happy with the smoothness of the filler on the lower right so I decided to sand the aileron smooth with 320 grit. This took about an hour and really sucked but I figured it would be worth it. I then also lightly sanded the upper right but I didn’t have enough time to spray them that will wait til next time.

Total time all three days 7 hours
Total time 716.5 hours

Cleaning and brushing the fill coats on the lower right aileron

Tonight I decided that since the lower left aileron is done for now I would get started on the lower right aileron fill process. I started by vacuuming the aileron to get the dust off and then I sprayed cleaner on to the aileron and wiped with a damp coth. I finished by rinsing with a fresh terry towel and water. After that used some compressed air to blow off the left over terry towel fuzzies and redid the finish ironing the tapes to make sure they were down. I then got right into the brush coats of the eko fill. I did the top side in short order and then did the second coat after that. Came out pretty good.

Time spent 1.5 hours
Total time spent 709.5 hours

more filling the lower left aileron

So since my over spraying the lower left aileron I have sanded down the runs and resprayed 1 coat and sanded again but fairly light this time and final sprayed the last two cross coats of the EKOFill. It turned out pretty good but I won’t know for sure until I get the top coat on. BTW the sanding is kinda a bitch and am not looking forward to the large wings at this point hopefully it goes better on the lower right aileron…

Time spent 4 hours
Total time spent 708 hours

Eko Fill the lower left aileron

Kinda a roll up post on the eko filling the lower aileron. So I decided to dig into one of the lower ailerons 1 for now just to get the hang of the stewarts systems products. First off I mixed up the eko clean to a 1:18 mixture of cleaner to water and I lightly sprayed that on the to the aileron wiping it with a clean damp terry towel. I then rinsed with a wet terry towel. The problem I imediatly noticed was that the terry towels that stewarts tells you to use leave a lint on the surface. I found that high pressure air nozzle removed it very well but i figured this out after I did my first coat of the brush part. I let it dry over night and did the second coat of after I lightly sanded the terry towel lint off the surface. I then did the second coat. After it dried I lightly sanded that as well. I then sprayed the first cross coat with the Devilbiss Finish line 3 gun with two craftsman pro 7.4 CFM compressors tee together to make 15 ish CFM. After it dried I sanded that lightly to get it smooth and then sprayed the 2nd cross coat. I only got one coat in and realized I got a little over zealous and sprayed too much and it started to run! Damn it! Anyway it was only a few runs and I should be able to sand them out and continue the last cross coat. Were it didn’t run it looked really smooth and nice and I was pretty satisfied so I hope I will get the runs out and try again. If not I pull the covering off and try again that is why I tried the ailerons first I don’t waste much money in covering supplies just a bunch of time.

Time spent 5 hours
Total time spent 704 hours

Finishing tapes on the upper right aileron and tip cap fabric

Well today I got back off my short week long summer vacation to the beach and got right back down to the basement to finish taping my upper right aileron.  If you remember from the previous post I had only taped the ribs but still needed to tape the spars, the trailing edge and the bottom side ribs.  After I had all those taped and drying I decided to get the tip cap fabric installed which is a PITA (pain in the ass) You have to do quite a bit of shrinking the fabric to get it to make the shape and even to that end I had to make a small slit to make it around the nose in nice shape.  I finished those on the other ailerons as well.  Its almost time for some eko fill!

The picture below is an example of the tip caps I was talking about, and yes I have a little trimming to do on the trailing edge.

 

Time spent today 5 hours

Total time spent 699 hours

Stitching and taping the lower right aileron

Tonight I got right down to basement to start marking the lower right aileron for stitches and tapes. Once they were marked I cut and taped on the re-in-forcing tape on the ribs and started stitching. It went much faster than the two times before. Once that was done cut and glued on the rib tapes and the leading edge taper tape. After that I installed the taper transition tape and the finally the two spar tape (upper and lower side) and the trailing edge tape. Other than the two end tapes this aileron is done.

Time spent today 4 hours
Total time spent 684.5 hours

Covering the lower right aileron

Tonight I decided to get back to work after a long memorial day weekend full of 4 days of wakeboarding fun. I got to work covering the aileron by gluing the edges just like I did before. I was able to get the whole thing covered and shrunk to 350 deg tomorrow will be rib stitching.

Time spent today 2.5 hours
Total time spent 680.5 hours

Finish tapes on lower left aileron covering the upper left aileron

Today I started off by finishing the upper side spar tape on the lower left aileron and then I also taped the trailing edge. All I have left on this aileron is to install the tip tapes to close everything off.

I set that aileron aside and start the upper left aileron by generally cleaning the dust and finger prints off the the aileron with some alcohol in a spray bottle with a rag. I then started taping on the anti-chaff tape on the ribs, spars and trailing edges. After that I glued on the piece fabric that I had cut a week ago it looks as though I can get three ailerons out of one 2 yrd X 2 yrd piece of fabric.

Time spent tonight 3.5 hours
Total time spent 672.5 hours