January 22, 2006
There was this big nasty scratch right across the skin.
I cut out a little patch to see if it extended through the blue plastic to the skin. The skin was totally untouched. I decided that what I though was a scratch or a cut was maybe just the seam where one roll of film ended and the next one began. I dunno. Bottom line, the skin was clean.
So I had the soldering iron out, and I was about ready to cut out all the neat little pieces of plastic etc etc. I just couldn't do it. What a royal waste of time. I'm gonna paint this thing one day. All the work I'm doing to keep the tiniest little scratches off will all be for naught when the painter hits the skin with 320 grit sandpaper prior to priming. Duh. I just ripped off all the plastic. I am SO done with all this time consuming BS.
My latest primer. Tempo Zinc Chromate. The stuff goes on ugly, but it's self etching. All I do is clean with some MEK or laqque thinner and spray.
Here's my new technique for doing these stiffeners. Here you see just the trailing edge rivets loaded, and the rest of the stiffeners cleoed. Here's the problem: if you completely rivet all of the stiffeners on one side, when you turn it over to do the other side the trailing edge eivets are a total pain to get to because you can't really flex the skin out of the way to sneak your gun in there to get the trailing edge rivet. I mean, you CAN flex it out of the way, but it's very difficult. Instead, I decided to just back rivet all the trailing edge rivets on one side. The clecoes are there to keep the stiffeners alinged while I do this. Then I flip it over and completely rivet the other side. Since the stiffeners on the first side are only held in by the one trailing edge rivet, the skin is still free to flex out of the way. Then I go back and finish off the first side. This worked out VERY well.
Started clecoeing together the substructure. The two counterbalance ribs fit HORRIBLY. I could barely get the clecoes in there.
It was a nightmare getting everything to fit...
Somehow I got through it, but I'm going to e-mail the groups and Vans to see if they have any suggestions on the tip ribs.