(page 12-02) My 433rd favorite thing..............              

....sanding fiberglass.  I postponed pages 11-01 through 11-05 and 11-08 through 12-01 for a number of reasons.  I've definitely decided on the paint-as-I-go approach, thereby eliminating some of the dissassembly-reassembly called for in the plans.  This brought me to the v-stab and rudder fairings, which require sanding to allign with and fit inside the metal parts.  The plans suggest wrapping some 80-grit around "a cylindrical object" and doing it by hand.  This would have taken a while, and we're currently experiencing the mother of all heat waves -- 101 F this particular day -- so I carted the belt sander outside (to keep fiberglass dust off everything in the garage) and used it.  I considered using a Dremel tool with a sanding drum, but thought it would be difficult keeping the straight edges straight with this.  Worked like a charm.  I used the curved top of the sander for the curved rear portion of the v-stab fairing and the flat part for everything else.  The edges being sanded will be hidden beneath the aluminum, so it's not critical anyway.  The whole operation took only ten or so minutes.

Ron Alexander has a good writeup on painting airplanes (Google his name and the topic, it may have first appeared in Sport Aviation).  He strongly suggests painting individual parts before assembling the airplane, if possible.  I'm curious why most builders don't do this (maybe I'm about to find out).  I'm aware of the possible variations in color with different batches of paint.  I'll take the chance.