Acid etch and alodine bath
For acid etching and alodining all of the wing ribs and various parts, I made up a simple dip bath. I used this same method on some of the longer parts on the horizontal stabilizer and was very pleased with the results. This was the first time that we used the same idea for acid etching though and we’ll acid etch in a bath, as opposed to the spray bottle method, from now on.
The bath is just some 1×6 pine boards screwed together real quick. Note that I didn’t bother to put a bottom on it, the bench top sufficed just fine. Then I lined the resulting box with two layers of 6mil plastic. I bought a large roll of this stuff at Home Depot early in construction and I use it for all kinds of stuff when things get messy. I stapled the plastic to the top edge to keep it in place and help it stay down in the box. I didn’t do this when I did the horizontal stabilizer. It makes a big difference as the plastic wants to come out of the bottom corners of the box and no longer conform to the flat bottomed box. After the lining was in place, I clamped one edge of the bath to the bench top to help stabilize it. This was another improvement in my process.
