We'll be recovering the horizontal and vertical stabilizers and the wings
1.0 hours (actual work on the aircraft)
Dale and I removed the wings from the XP,
loaded them on a borrowed trailer (thanks, John) and moved them to Dale's
workshop in Cochran that we had cleaned and emptied. We moved all the
fabric and recovering supplies from my home to the workshop. A recently
acquired friend is coming to town next Saturday and Sunday to help us finish
covering the canard and to help in recovering the wings. I'll post
pictures of the operation after next weekend.
No work time, just another 3 hours on the road
Made another trip to Griffin (Aircraft Spruce), picked up more reducer, fabric
and tape, another gallon of Poly-Spray and Poly-Brush. There's a lot of
hobbies/interests that will nickel and dime you to death. Not this
one! Haven't bought anything yet that cost a nickel or a dime!
9.0 hours
Removed all the old fabric from the wings and vertical
stabs. Drilled all fabric rivets and removed tape from spars.
Cleaned all metal with MEK. Repaired the control pulleys in both
wings. Pulleys gummed up and wouldn't spin. Installed wiring inside
the wing for position lights.
|
|
|
Saturday, October 18
Sunday, October 19
10.0 hours (me) - Saturday
18.0 hours (Steve & Coy) - Saturday
8.0 hours (me) - Sunday
22.0 hours (Steve, Coy & Dale)
On Saturday a couple of friends, Coy Goff and Steve
Massengil, began covering the wings, the canard stabilizers and the tail
feathers. Long day. We continued the next day with Dale working with
us. We managed to get the stabs ready to silver and we finished the fabric
covering on one wing. Finished the initial taping and brushed on one coat of
Polybrush. Ironed the wing and managed to get one of the vertical stabs
covered.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Top Left to Right:
<<Polybrushing the wing end |
 |
Tuesday, October 21
3 hours (me)
3 hours (Dale)
Dale and I completed taping, reinforcing and riveting the bottom of the wing and installed the reinforcing tape and rivets on the top. Set the reinforcing patches around the wing protrusions and brushed on the second coat of Polybrush on the bottom.
|
 Getting out the wrinkles around the reinforcing patch |
Thursday, October 23
4.0 hours
 |
Dale and I worked on the wing Thursday, finishing up the taping and doing the finish ironing to get all those pesky little bubbles and wrinkles out of the fabric and tape. |
Friday, October 24
1 hour
| Dale put the second Polybrush coat on the wing top. Thanks, sport, I really do appreciate the help. |  |
Saturday, October 25
2 hrs
Finished the edge taping of the wing. Took out all the imperfections we could find by ironing. Hung the wing up out of the way and set the left wing on the stands ready for covering.
Dale cleaned the right vertical stabilizer with MEK and a lot of hard work. Had a lot of cellophane tape on it. Not sure what that was all about. We'll cover it as soon as we finish the left wing.
Thursday, October 30
8 hrs
| Fine-sanded and cleaned the metal on the left wing, then taped and covered it. Gave it the first ironing. Got dark... went home. | ||
 |
 |
 |
Tuesday, November 4
3 hrs
Finished the next two ironings, and put on the first Polybrush coat.
Thursday, November 6
1 hr
Dale put on the reinforcing tape on one side and set the rivets into the spars.
Friday, November 7
1 hr
Fabricated the rudder cable pulley brackets. The ones pictured are the 8th and 9th tries. The old pulleys were worn and cracked, and I couldn't get the same size as the old ones, so the brackets had to be made to fit the new size.
 |
 |