Wednesday 1
Well I am at about the stage where I think I can pronounce a wing, flap and Aileron as done. I was thinking of covering the wing with plastic but the A&P who maintains our Comanche related a story to me of a Pulsar builder who wrapped his wing in plastic when it came time for him to paint it the plastic had deposited a film on the surface that was really difficult to get off.
After that little story Jenny offered to stitch up some covers made out of old sheets so we busied ourselves with that task and then brought up the port wing from the garage.
Thursday 2
I only did a little bit on the second wing tonight. I put a layer of bid over the wing root faring to help the transition of the fairing transition a little better onto the wing. Apparently some folks have reported that after a time the transition of the fairing to the wing becomes visible so hopefully the layer of bid will help prevent this.
Friday 3
I spent the evening removing all of the hardware for the flap and outrigger retraction mechanism.
Saturday 4
There is nothing very exciting to report for my day's activity. I washed the wing surface and wiped it down with prep wipe and spend most of the day sanding the surface down with 100 grit paper.
I had my fist crack at filling the seam, and it seems like that this wing is worse than the other.
Sunday 5
I sanded back the filling along the seam and applied another 300mm wide section of filler. I use a long strip of aluminum to spread a nice wide seam. It is easier if you have someone helping with a heat gun. If you get the temperature just right the SuperFil flows very nicely.
While I was waiting for that to cure I put a layer of bid on the top fairing similar to what I had done on the bottom.
Tuesday 7
I sanded back the new section from Sunday's effort it looks like this is going to take a few cycles of fill, sand and fill. My friend Gert came by to help a little. He is building an RV8 and he is at the stage where his progress is limited by the amount of money he can throw at the project.
He had a broken part from a tong ammeter and he was keen to try and repair it with some Redux., so we got the "magic" glue out and gave it a shot.
Thursday 9
My friend Gert came over again so we did quire a bit of filling. It certainly goes much faster when you have someone mixing the SuperFil and applying a bit of heat at the right time. We managed to put some filler in the root, tip and the low areas in the seam that were revealed from the previous evenings sanding.
Friday 10
No building
Saturday 11
I did another round of sanding on the top side seam, root and tip and put a small amount of filler in the low spots. Once that was done I turned the wing over and sanded the bottom.
Sunday 12
In the morning I filled the root and tip areas on the bottom of the wing but it was such a sunny day outside I quite for the day and went flying instead.
Monday 13
No building.
Tuesday 14
I did some more sanding back of the underside area around the root and added a few small spots of filler.
Wednesday 15
No building.
Thursday 16
No building.
Friday 17
Saturday 18 & Sunday 19
I whole of the weekend was taken up with applying the first coats of Smooth Prime. I finished up the last of the preparation work and over the course of the weekend I applied 4 coats of smooth prime on both sides of the swing.
Monday 20
No building.
Tuesday 21
I got a couple of hours in sanding the underside of the port wing and I go about 25% of the surface done with 150 grit paper.
Wednesday 22
No building.
Thursday 23
I got another another 25% of the underside of the wing done tonight before calling quits.
Friday 24
No building.
Saturday 25 & Sunday 26
I only got a day and a half in the workshop this weekend because I had to travel to New York on business, but I did get the bottom and top of the wing sanded back with 150 grit paper ready for spraying on the final two coats of Smooth Prime.
The top side of this wing seemed to turn out better that the starboard wing, despite the seam being in worse shape. The secret is in getting a nice wide area of filler in and making it taper back to nothing. The proof will be in the final application of smooth prime and sanding back with 320 grit paper.
Monday 27 ~ Friday 1
Traveling on business.