I spent some time spot priming the machine countersunk tank attach holes. I haven’t seen anybody suggest this method, but Tanya came up with the idea of using a simple little stencil. I took a piece of cardboard and cut a hole in it a little bigger than the holes I wanted to prime. Then just shot the primer with the cardboard held up against the spar. This worked great, was so easy, and the results look very good.
Ugh! Need I say more? There are a whole lot of ribs and I deburred and straightened all of the edges. This was a huge task. I did most of the deburring and straightening over a single weekend (10 hour days). My hands were very sore from working each rib. The upside is that they are all beautiful. I even completed boring a 3/4″ hole in each main rib for electrical conduit.
I then clecoed the main ribs in place (a minor orientation puzzle) and am now match drilling the rib attachment holes at the main and rear spars. Note that I’m doing both wings at once. So far so good on that. I can’t imagine having to go back and do some of this stuff again months later on a second wing. As it is, I’m able to do a process on one wing, then spin around and do the same to the other wing.
This week will see the completion of match drilling the spar attachments. Then it will be on to priming all of the ribs (scuff, wash, acid etch, alodine dip, prime) which will probably take the better part of a week.
I am have been working on deburring all edges of all ribs recently. It is slow uninteresting work.
Today I completed the rear spar parts preparation (drill, debur, edge debur, countersink). I use a vixen file on all of the edges to knock down the majority of the shear marks. Then I usually clean up the edges with a scotchbrite pad. All of the doublers were match drilled and some of the holes required countersinking. I hope I got the right ones countersunk. I guess we’ll see when it comes time to put everything together. Now it is time to move on to rib prep.
Here is something that has been on my mind for quite some time. This is Texas, where the winter is mild and the summer is scorching. I started construction in November. It is now March and we had our first slightly warmer day this weekend. It has been so nice being able to easily control the temperature in the garage with a simple little space heater. It wouldn’t be long before the summer heat made working on the plane a real chore. So I installed a portable air conditioner.
I was wandering through Home Depot the other day and saw these units (Everstar model MPK-10CR). I didn’t even know they existed. It is a real air conditioner, much like a window unit, except that it vents the hot air through a flex hose. The hose is like a large dryer vent (5″). So, I installed a dryer vent in the wall and plugged the unit in and we’re done. Condensation is collected in an internal removable bucket or directly drained via a small hose. The installation actually took me a couple of hours because I had to install the vent through an exterior brick wall (that was fun). It should be noted that I had already carefully insulated the garage walls and door before I began construction. So now I’m not dreading working in the garage this summer! Super cool (literally).
