Deburring

Running time: 25 hours

I’ve been working on-and-off the last week or so on deburring all the remaining edges on the vertical stabilizer pieces. All done–I’m not sure if this is any more efficient than just deburring a part the first time the instructions refer to it, but I feel like doing it this way gets one into the rhythm of doing something on the plane every night or so.

Spray painting and plastic removal

Running Time: 20 hours
I spent time this weekend learning to spray paint…my technique has been to clean with acetone, then spray with Dupli-Color self-etching primer.

I’ve also been playing around with a soldering pen to remove the blue plastic… My lines aren’t particularly straight but they are good enough to keep the metal better protected while I am working.

Spar Caps, Part I

Running Time: 12 hours

I finished drilling and deburring on the hinge brackets, but I would like to prime them before riveting. Since it’s quite dark, and raining…and I’ve never actually applied self-etching primer on anything before, maybe the priming will have to wait for another day.

In the mean time, I moved on to page 06-03, and have separated the two pieces of both the left and right spar caps. Also filed the extraneous material off of the places where I cut them apart with a hacksaw.

I think my next project is going to be scuffing up a wing section I made at an EAA SportAir workshop a few years ago, and seeing how the Dupli-Color self-etching primer turns out.

Vertical Stabilizer Hinge Bracket, Part I

Running Time: 6.25

I spent several hours setting up shop, finding tools, putting rivets in containers…just to be able to reach my workbench.

I refused to go to bed before doing at least one real build step. I skipped AEX wedge fabrication (that’s just tooling, not building, right?) and went to the first real task–final drilling #12 holes in VS-1210 hinge brackets:

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I am now rediscovering/re-remembering that my air drill is leaking air, even when not drilling. D’oh!