Lots of parts to scuff & degrease, so took quite a while. Also the skins and rear spars need to be masked off in the areas where the foam ribs will be bonded. Vans also suggest that the TE is masked where the 3M F9460PC Adhesive Tape  will bond the TE wedge. As with the rudder, I think this is the last place the structure shouldn’t be primed, so I did not mask this & primed it. The tape bonded just fine on the rudder, and I intend to build the TE whilst clecoed to aluminium angle as I did with the rudder.

Masking

Spent a moment to line up the skins and check the masking agreed … good job, spotted one place where I had accidentally placed the tape on the wrong side of my mark!

Priming Structure

Primed the structural parts first.

I hung up all the little rib stiffeners, but I’m not a great fan of this method. Takes a long time, and needed little hooks made of paperclips to hold onto the bottoms to stabilise and manipulate during spraying. Probably should have sprayed in 3 sessions with hindsight.

I learnt about thinning from that!

All went well until the skin session. I had saved some white acrylic from yesterday’s spraying session, which I use to seal the acid etch. When I was estimating how much I’d need for the skins, I decided to mix up a little bit more. After I had sprayed the acrlyic on the skins, I noticed it was running slightly around the dimples. Never happened before … as I was wondering what was different, I suddenly realised. I had measured out the already thinned white paint, added a bit more, and then thinned it all again. So effectively I had just sprayed with paint thinned twice … foohey fudge cake : (

Anyway, it’s not too bad, and no-one apart from me, Tim & the inspector will know it’s there after the elevators are all closed up ; )