Thank you to all of you who stop by here on a regular basis. Today the Garaggio hit 10,000 views. I think that is pretty cool. We have 35 subscribed viewers who get an email every time I make a post, and probably many more who just stop by from time to time. If you are not subscribed, you can do so by putting your email in the box on the right side of the page. I have a new design and organization for this website that we will be going live with soon, and hopefully the next 10,000+ views will find it more aesthetically pleasing, better organized, and with the same good contents.
Onward to projects. I was able to make it back into the Garaggio today, and Greg joined me. We are still working on contour sanding. I kept going with the cowling. It has lots of details and many corners so it takes quite a lot of time. I think we are to the point where I would say the shape is 90% there. You can see shadowing of the underlying structure where the fill is getting thin. The shape is nice. Now we are just going a little further to take as much weight off as we can and to ensure it blends well into the strakes, turtleback, and wings.
While I was doing that, Greg was working on the canopy rails. The canopy rails meet the canopy plexi glass in a slightly acute angle, and so you need a really thin, rigid sanding block to be able to contour the canopy rails right up to the glass. So we made a new sanding device. I decided that a putty knife was the perfect sanding tool. So we ground radii on the corners of the knife to prevent any scratches or abuse to the plexi glass, and used spray adhesive to secure the 36 grit. It works great. 80 grit sandpaper will go on the other side.
The canopy rails were quite challenging and will require some additional work to get them down to where they need to be. I am still somewhat disappointed in the seams that were left behind by the sheet wax. Maybe once we get sanded down a bit further they will improve. If not, we will sand a new gap and try again.
There isn’t a lot that is exciting to report when all I am doing is sanding. I do promise that we will get to more exciting tasks sooner or later. But I am looking forward to seeing the airplane in all white primer, so bear with me. Anyways, more sanding tomorrow. Here is the back end. Goodnight.
the Garaggio 