The fuselage and empennage are ready to pick up having been sandblasted and primed with Epibond epoxy primer. That's a job for later in the week so today I made a start on priming the aluminium parts. My system is as follows:First each part is immersed in a solution of Deoxidine 624 and scrubbed with a scotchbrite pad. Deoxidine 624 is a liquid cleaner for aluminium and its alloys to remove oils and oxides prior to painting or anodising.
Then each part is washed with clean water and hung up to dry making sure not to touch them with anything that might result in contamination (e.g. bare hands).
Finally once completely dry the parts are laid out on a mesh table and sprayed with the Epibond. This takes 7 days to fully harden so each part will then be stored for at least that long before topcoating with Ranthane polyurethane where applicable.
Surprisingly, unless I've miscounted, there are 53 separate aluminium parts that need spraying including large panels such as the floors, doors, and cowl cheeks. This is going to take some time to complete and is weather dependent as I will be spraying outside. Anyway at least I've made a start with 12 of the smaller parts cleaned and spayed on one side. This will be a background job at the same time as building the wing ribs - see tomorrow's post.
