Well, we finally did it we got the first coat of primer on the wings. But before we get to that in the post, we have to talk about this morning. Jon came over to work on the airplane today so we divided and conquered.
I fit the rudders to the winglets and validated that they swing bind-free and of proper deflection angles. This required cutting a .2″ relief in the winglets for the piano hinge to rest in. Then I had to spot sand on both the winglet and rudder to make sure that the hinges sat down flush against the flanges. A radius had to be sanded on the inside surface along the rudder/winglet seam to allow for proper fit.
While I was working on that, Jon, who happens to be a master wood craftsman, built some Rube Goldberg modern art out of 2×4’s.
In actuality, they are wing stands that allow the wings to be primed on both upper and lower surfaces at the same time. It took Jon most of the morning to get the proper angles and everything adequately reinforced.
We started priming the wings by spraying with my paint gun, just like I did the fuselage underside. It turned out to be a disaster. I got three quarters of the way through the first coat and started having troubles with my gun. When I looked all the surfaces I painted were horrible, runs a plenty! I cleaned out the gun and tried re adjusting. I finally had settings that appeared to be working well without runs and the gun clogged. Even cleaning again, I could not seem to get the gun to work properly.
We “resorted” to rolling on the UV Smooth prime. Turns out rolling was a much better idea. I simply do not have the practice with the gun to get a consistent coverage. I could have fiddled with it for hours and still not gotten a decent coating of primer. The finish of the rolled on primer is an ugly eggshell texture, but it needs to be sanded anyway. So we are going to stick to rolling for now. It seems to be more consistent, and after sanding you cannot tell the difference.
It took 6 parts of this series to get to priming just the wings. We have quite a few more pieces to prime, and the wings will require a few more rounds, but all in all, white wings are beautiful!
Oh, and as part of the do-see-do with the airplane pieces, tools, and Garaggio inhabitants, the fuselage got a little time outdoors in the sun!
the Garaggio 