Wing skeleton cleaned and ready for priming

Today I finished the nose ribs by deburring all the match drilled and tooling holes, then scuffed them up. I then deburred the holes in the main spars.

Next I cleaned all the wing ribs and rear spar parts ready for priming. I use PreKote as a cleaner/surface treatment. Using some fine sand paper, you spray the PreKoate all over the part then lightly wipe it all over with some fine sandpaper. Next you rinse it off with water, then spray PreKote all over the part again and wipe it all over (either using my fingers wearing a latex glove, or with some lint-free paper cloth). Finally, one last rinse off with water then put the part aside to dry. From this point onwards, I never touch the parts with bad hands and always wear latex gloves when handling the cleaned parts.

I had enough PreKote to clean all the main ribs and rear spar parts for both wings. I managed to get the the nice ribs cleaned for the right wing but the left wing nose ribs are yet to be cleaned. Cleaning all these ribs took AGES. It was repetitive and boring but the iPod made it bearable. Here is a shot of all the cleaned parts (and the stack of nose ribs yet to be done).

I also had a very good turn of luck during the week. Another builder from Perth named Alex was very generous and dropped off some 2-part primer that he wasn’t going to use before it’s expiry date. This was great timing as I was wondering if I had enough primer to paint all of the wing skeleton. Many thanks Alex. You’re a champion!

Build time today – 5.5 hrs.