During the week Mark spent a few hours every night working on the ribs to the vertical stabilzer. First he began with deburring all of the ribs which resulted in a trip to Lowe's to see if there was a Dremel bit that he could use to deburr the edges of the flange. He was successful in finding a Scotch Brite type head that seems to do the trick. He next moved on to fluting the ribs to ensure that they were straight which involved putting a small crease in the flange using a pair of fluting pliers.We've answered the eternal question "To prime or not to prime?" by deciding to go ahead and prime all of the internal pieces. Before priming, Mark needed to find a good way to clean the metal pieces, so one evening he took over the kitchen sink and used soap, water, and a Scotch brite pad to scour the ribs. The following day, he used Methyl Ethyl Ketone to wipe down the surfaces before spraying the self-etching primer we purchased from NAPA last week. Boy did the garage smell "good" after all of that! Maybe a trip to Harbor Freight Tools is on the agenda for the weekend to buy a respirator to help Mark save some of his few remaining brain cells. When Mark came in for the night he told me how i t brought back memories for him of painting cars in high school with his Dad. For the days following the paint job, he would see the color of the car they painted on the Kleenex when he blew his nose. Ah, what fond memories!
The plan for this weekend is to finish the "Christmas Tree" which consists of the vertical stabilizer spar and the attached ribs. We may even cover the vertical stabilizer with its skin which may give me the first opportunity to pull a few rivets. (A girl can only hope.)
The Spar and ribs after priming:
To help those friends and family understand where all the pieces will eventually go:
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