Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Wings

Disassembled the ribs from the spars to begin the long and tedious task of prep for final assembly. This included fluting (we hadn't yet fluted the ribs to straighten them-- they weren't too bowed but a few of them definitely needed straightening), deburring the holes already match-drilled, scotch-briting, and priming. We got through all of the small parts, including the aileron attach brackets we made ahead of time in Section 15. Not too many pictures since prep work is about as interesting as watching primer dry... we did shoot this pic though:

One of us is more creative than the other when it comes to laying out parts to prime. See the little guy with a backpack on the right? Sarah has named him Edward.

Unfortunately we had to reposition some of Edward's body parts before actually spraying them, in the spirit of primer efficiency.

One note on primer: The astute observer may notice that we're switching a lot between Rustoleum Self-Etching Primer (gray), Duplicolor Self-Etching Primer (green), and Rustoleum Aluminum Primer (white). Going forward, I think I'll be getting away from the Rustoleum Self-Etching because it goes on too thick. I have one or two cans left and might use some on random parts here and there, but during the tailcone construction I sort of decided on going with Duplicolor for all non-skin parts, and Rustoleum Aluminum primer for the inside of skins. They both seem to adhere pretty well, and one can seems to go farther than the RSE did. I like the white color of the Aluminum primer on the skins too, hopefully it should make future inspections easier by reflecting more light inside enclosed areas. We'll see how it goes.