Sunday, December 25, 2011

Pulled 8, Squeezed 8....                                                                      

Primed the horizontal stab rear spar and the spar caps which get riveted to it.  As an experiment, I tried the PreKote on the spar itself, scuffing with red Scotch Brite as I washed on the PreKote.  Rinsed with tap water, repeated, then did a final rinse with distilled water.

 For the spar caps, I simply washed with mild soap (again scuffing with Scotch Brite), rinsed and dried. No PreKote. According to people who should know, this should be sufficient.

After drying, I primed all parts with the self-etching primer. As the pics show, squeezing the flush rivets scraped off a fair amount of primer. The pulled rivets weren't a problem since the rivet tool doesn't touch the aluminum. I'll spray primer on the whole aft side of the spar before painting since this surface will be visible on the completed airplane.

Also, the female threaded part of the nutplates doen't seem to line up exactly with the holes in the spar web and spar cap.  If this is a problem when I install the bearings, I'll open up the holes a bit with a Dremel.  Shouldn't be an issue.
                             

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