Recovering Page 2

Saturday, November 8
9 hrs
Sunday, November 9
4 hrs

Started early Saturday to finish the wings and tail feathers.  Made it. We can move the wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers and the fuselage to the paint booth next week.  We'll spray one more coat of Polybrush, three coats of Polyspray (silver) and THEN it will be ready for paint.

After putting the reinforcing tape in place, we used a soldering iron to burn the pilot holes in the reinforcing tape, then placed the fabric rivets in the holes and set all the rivets.  Used 2" tape over the rivets, four-inch tape on the leading edge seam and 6-inch tape on the trailing edge seam.
Covered the one vertical stabilizer that we had left, and ironed, taped and put the first Polybrush coat on it.  Taped the one we had covered a couple of weeks ago, and put the second coat of Polybrush on both of them.  Used bias tape on the leading edge of the stabs. A little stretching and a hot iron will make a pretty good curve.  Jim Amodeo had told me it would, but sometimes you have to see it to believe it.

Both wings and both vertical stabilizers finished 
(through the 2nd Polybrush coat) and drying.

Saturday, November 22
5 hr

Put the wings on some home-made wing stands that we'll be able to use in the painting process.  Dale and I disassembled the aileron assemblies, and removed all the pivot blocks from the tubes.  We're going to replace all the pivot blocks, as some were cracked at the rivet holes and most looked like they were on the verge of cracking.  Got 8 new blocks from Falcon East.  A few of the mounting plates needed to be replaced, so I made those from  .060 aluminum plate.  Drilled the rivet holes in the new blocking plates and will install them next week.  Had to make a small repair in one of the aileron trailing edges.

Part of the home-made stand for the wings		One of the pivot block mounting plates that had to be replaced.

Hard at work drilling out the rivets in the alerion assembly and the pivot blocks

Saturday, November 29
Sunday, November 30
4 hours

Dale helped (actually did most of the work) me remove the shaft bearings for the ailerons in order to replace all the bearings.  They were showing cracks and wear so we decided to replace all of them.  We did one side at his house and I took the other one home and worked at it on Sunday.

Saturday, December 13
Sunday, December 14
10 hrs

Took the wings, tail feathers, and stabilizers to Coy Goff's shop in Warner Robins.  Saturday and Sunday, we sprayed the last coat of PolyBrush (pink) on all the fabric, repaired any nicks and blemishes we could find and removed all the brush hairs from the final coat.  We sprayed the first coat of PolySpray (silver) on all the fabric pieces. Sunday we cleaned the surfaces and sprayed the second coat of PolySpray.  Noticed in the PolyFabric book that we needed C-2210 Solvent to clean the surfaces with.  Of course that was one of the materials I overlooked.  Took a run out to John Joye's house and as usual, he had what I needed.  Before I get through with this project, I'm going to owe him a truck load of materials.  Thanks, John....

With Coy doing the spraying, we didn't have one run in either coat of the PolySpray.  The guy is a wizard with a spray gun.  I don't even like to think what the job would look like if I had to do the spraying.  

Can't tell much difference in the first and second coat from the pictures.  Up close and personal it is a little easier to tell.  We're going to put the final coat of PolySpray on in a day or two.  After that, it'll be a 4-day wait and then we'll begin the final painting.  I did discover one mathematical formula that has to do with spraying fabric.  The formula is ^aBh=3(Bh)R.  Don't know what that one is??  It reads "all - Brush hairs equal three times the amount of Brush hairs you Remove." In other words, for every brush hair you pull off the previous coat of paint, there are always three times the number on the next coat.  I do believe the spray gun is manufacturing the hairs inside the gun and spitting them out just to aggravate me!

Friday, December 19
4 hrs

Sprayed the final coat of PolySpray today.  This coat has to have 4 days (according to the book) before we can put the first coat of paint on.  Christmas is next week, so we'll probably wait until after the holidays to begin the 'real' painting.  I have the white Aerothane paint, but Aircraft Spruce was out of the base paint for the 'Tennessee Red'.  At least while we're waiting for the PolySpray to cure, I can get to McDonough and pick up the red paint.  One more trip to McDonough!
The fabric looks great with the third coat of PolySpray.  Coy has really done a fantastic job with the spray gun.  Love to watch people with talent work!  Merry Christmas!

Saturday, January 3
2 hrs

Decided to keep the wing struts unpainted.  Cleaned and polished the aluminum on one strut today.  Still some pitting, but it looks 200% better than it did before I polished it.  Going to have to wait until tomorrow to do the other one.  Plenty of rags, plenty of polish, but I'm out of energy.  Had to watch Georgia Tech demolish Tulsa in the H-Bowl today, and it took all the umph I had to push them to a 52-10 win.

Thursday, January 8
5 hrs

Dale and I built a rack to hold the vertical and horizontal stabilizers rigid (somewhat) so the high pressure paint gun wouldn't blow them around.  Coy had trouble with the small parts moving while he was spraying the PolySpray, and we wanted a little more stability before he used the Aerothane. 

We hung the rack in Coy's paint booth and mounted the stabilizers from it.  Worked pretty good!  Dale and I cleaned the fabric with solvent and tacked it down before Coy started the real work.
	The Aerothane has to be mixed with catalyst (3 to 1), thinner (4 to 1)and then has to cook for 15-20 minutes before being applied.
	Coy sprayed the Aerothane just like the book called for: one thin coat and wait for it to get tacky, another medium coat and wait for it to get tacky, and then a good third coat.
	We finished the stabilizers.  The paint (Insignia White) looks great.  We're going to try to finish one of the wings tomorrow and then maybe the other one Saturday.