Rudder / Horizontal Stabilizer & Priming

Rudder

Section 7

This section was a tad different than the last.  The steps are a bit misleading because you would shoot through three of them in 30 mins and then one would take 5 hours.  I'm still reading each step several times as well as looking at other build logs.  I'm learning a lot of the techniques and am more comfortable in execution. There was a lot of part cutting and fabrication type activities in this section.

substructure, ignore backwards rib..

Lots O' Clecos

I changed up some of my process, when working through a substructure I deburr the parts as soon as I pull the blue film off.  Then while putting together and match drilling, I don't deburr a single hole until it's put together.  Then when I dismantle everything I go through the arduous process of deburring holes, sides and any other pieces I missed before doing dimples.  So, for example on the rudder I spent a good 4 hours doing nothing but final deburring of all parts and skin.  I had to charge my deburring electric screwdriver several times, while waiting I used my new C-Frame table to dimple the skins.  Well I used a combination of the pneumatic squeezer and C-frame to do the dimples. This table made the process go smooth.

Horizontal Stabilizer

Section 8

It occurred to me that I don't necessarily have to do the parts in a specific order.  There are some times during the build it makes sense to work a few parts concurrently and this is one of those times. Reading ahead to the horizontal stabilizer I noticed that after four steps you can prime a rather large spar and doubler piece. I decided to go ahead and spend the hour or two getting these prepped to prime with the rudder parts.  Here's the finished stab to show the size of it.

Priming

Interesting that this was one of the activities I dreaded.  My first go around I felt a bit rushed because I had imposed a timeline to the process before really understanding the process in the first place. This go around I had maybe two or three times as many parts so obviously it took a while but it went off without much of a hitch.  I had help doing the final clean and Prekote process which saved me about 2 hours. I functioned more as a supervisor and handled some of the larger parts such as the skins and spars.  But given the Prekote product is non-toxic, doesn't irritate your skins ect. it's fairly safe for anyone to do.

As each piece go cleaned and etched I put them out on some cardboard to dry, after about 20 mins I would move them to some cardboard in the garage so when it was time to paint the parts wouldn't be too hot.  Once all the pieces were ready to be primed I did my equal mix of AKZO Base, Cure and Thinner.  Still learning how much to mix, I went through about 48 ounces or more of paint.  First batch did 24 ounces, second did 16 and third did about 8, each time I do a new mix I have to wait about 30 mins before I can spray it.  When I do spray it, I hit it with about two or three light coats, then inspect the parts and make sure I didn't miss anything.  If I did I spray those parts a bit extra.  In the end I moved them all inside onto some more cardboard and these will dry at least 24 hours before I mess with them.

I've even become a bit proficient at cleaning my spray gun only using about 5 ounces of mineral spirits.  I actually reuse it as well getting a few cleanings.  I guess I'll have another spray or two left in this gun and then I'll throw down another $10 and get a shiny new one.  Moving forward I won't post anymore pics or write-ups on priming unless there's something different about what I do.  It will just get incorporated into the build as I move forward.

Lots O' small parts