Prepping, Etching & Priming

I wish all the parts were as flat as this when it comes to sanding, but that would make for a strange looking contraption which I'm sure I wouldn't want to attempt to get off the ground.

Not the best photo, but this is F-01475 - the top skin.

And this.....the bottom of the fuselage plus some other aft fuselage parts I prepped at the same time.

My cleaning table...

                                                 1. Spray with Stewart Systems EkoEtch

                                                 2. Leave 4-5mins

                                                 3. Wash off thoroughly with water

                                                 4. Leave to dry

                                                 5. Ready to prime

Not that it's a huge issue, but I decided to mask the back of the rivet holes so the primer wouldn't spray through and cause mess. Blue plastic and the green painter's tape looks good.

All lined up ready to paint.

The three bulkheads in the top left have already been primed once, but I noticed the curve flange edges hadn't been rounded off. I hit them with the Scotchbrite wheel and here they are again.

All primed with Stewart Systems EkoPrime white.

This part is great! All deburred, sanded, etched primed and dried. Now they're ready to go together - the easy part.......and the fast.

The manual suggests placing these bulkheads upside down on a couple of work-horses. To save a little space, I decided to clamp some planks under the bench which worked fine.

Yep - below is an optical illusion. It's actually the floor panel which is a large triangle as shown in the next photo down.

Now, this is an interesting section as I didn't notice anything strange while wasting all that time deburring, sanding difficult shapes, etching and then priming parts that ultimately are scrap.

Notice anything weird?

How about this angle?...

Yep, the holes should be on the flat section. Obviously, the holes were punched in a flat section, and then inserted into the press back the front.

As per usual, Vans were great. Apart from the fact the mistake was made in the first place, They acknowledged the issue straight away with the following:

"I’m glad you caught this!  We had a few of these get out but we didn’t know the builders that received them!  That’s definitely mis-punched."

Fair enough, I guess once they get packed into boxes and leaves the shed, it's impossible to know where they go. If someone does actually find a way to install them, I'd be interested to see it.

Etching & Countersinking Elevator parts

I probably should've taken some photos of the etching process, but here are both spars and all ribs for both left and right elevators all sanded and etched ready to prime.

And a close-up as the ribs can't seen very well in the previous image...

Trim tab push rod and attach bracket...

Trim Tab Access Reinforcement Doubler...

Thought I'd put the skins here to dry. I know, not the best place where there's a chance to stand on them. I moved them straight after the photo.

Here's a better place for them...

Counter-sinking the trailing edges was a little fidgety as you need to ensure the face being presented to counter-sink is perpendicular to it. I simply used a similar section flipped 180 degrees probably seen better two images down...

Before and after counter-sinking...

No, I can count. The numbers written on the parts are actually the part numbers.

More prepping Elevator skins & ribs

At this stage I should've had a look ahead and realised the foam trailing edge wedges attach to the skins on bare aluminium stuck on with tank sealant. That being the case, masking tape was required after all four skins were etched.

I thought I'd take a quick pic showing the difference between polished and sanded aluminium...

Slowly getting through all the parts readying them for etching.

Here's the trim tab push rod parts being etched... 

and a short video of today's action...