31st March 2012 - To Do list

Today I spent  stripping out various internals ready for spraying. I also set about working out a to do list to complete the fuselage (this will still leave the wings to be skinned) as follows:

1. Apply second brush coat of  EkoFill to fuselage sides
2. Mask fuselage internals and spray 2 crosscoats of filler on to fuselage sides
3. Apply EkoFill to control surfaces: rudder, two off ailerons, two off flaps, two off elevators, two off horizontal stabilisers
4. Make drainholes in control surfaces
5. Apply EkoPoly to control surfaces
6. Prime and top coat all cowl attach brackets and spacers
7. Final fit front fuselage side panels and rivet into place on firewall with cowl attach brackets
8. Reprime front fuselage sides with EkoPrime to ensure topcoat colour match
9. Reprime front fuselage lower panel with EkoPrime to ensure topcoat colour match
10. Cut access hole in combing to allow fuel level sender to be calibrated, make and fit removable cover
11. Respay combing and refit
12. Fabricate internal and external cover plates over tank filler hole in windscreen, prime and topcoat
13. Install tank filler in windscreen and refit windscreen
14. Rivet Front windscreen edge strip to firewall and cowl attach brackets
15. Rivet lower cowl attach brackets to firewall
16. Prime undercarriage legs
17. Topcoat complete fuselage and undercarriage with white EkoPoly
18. Final weld right door latch
19. Fabricate left and right door latch covers
20. Fabric cover left and right door internal structure
21. Apply EkoFill to door internal skins
22. Topcoat doors with white EkoPoly
23. Fabricate and install remaining transparencies: Two off door, two off forward fuselage sides, two off rear fuselage sides
24. Seal inside of airbox with pigmented resin
25. Paint topcoat airbox metalwork
26. Rivet together airbox
27. Apply second coat of pigmented resin to seal inside of top cowl
28. Final fit cowl
29. Fill pinholes in cowl and prime
30. Topcoat cowl with white EkoPoly
31. Install cowl and mask for applying red fineline along fuselage and cowl
32. Topcoat spinner backplate with red EkoPoly
33. Spray fineline with red EkoPoly
34. Apply glass cloth reinforcement to top of leg spats
35. Prime leg spats with EkoPrime
36. Topcoat leg spats with white EkoPoly
37. Drill undercarriage ends to take cotter pins to secure wheel nuts
38. Install brakes
39. Fabricate brake pipes, fill, bleed, and pressure test brake lines
40. Test install wheel spats, fabricate inside support bracket to fit
41. Sand and prime wheel spats
42. Topcoat wheel Spats with white EkoPoly
43. Fabricate engine baffles
44. Fabricate engine exhaust system
45. Fabricate leg to fuselage intersection fairings
46. Fabricate leg to wheel spat intersection fairings

30th March 2012 - Finally some painting progress!

 

 

It had been a long winter and then too many other projects have delayed getting back underway with the build but finally today some progress was made. The next major task is to paint the remainder of the fuselage and the tail feathers. The bottom of the fuselage had been painted last year so today I cleaned the fabric on the rest of the fuselage and started applying the UV blocking filler. First the top and fin were brush painted with two coats applied at right angles (one cross coat). Then this was sanded down and two further cross coats applied with the spray gun. This just needs another quick sand and it is ready for the top coat. Then the two fuselage sides were given their first brush coat.