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Last Modified January 3rd 2002
1st - 7th December Despite the frantic pace at work I managed to spend a bit of free time in the evenings making up a cover for the Emergency Location Transmitter located in the base of the port baggage bin. I first made up the shape with pieces of foam, fitting these in place with tape, prior to covering the entire surface with packing tape. I then temporarily added some carpet to the insides of the baggage bin and taped over this to ensure that there was an allowance for the carpet thickness. All of the surfaces then had mould release wax applied to them prior to laying up two layers of carbon fibre bid cloth. The entire surface was peel plyed and left to set.
Once the piece had set I ripped it out of the aircraft, threw away the foam and tape and then proceeded to trim back the edges of the layup. When all looked good I spray painted it with speckle coat to match the rest of the aircraft. This cover will be a force fit into the baggage bay, being held in place by the carpet, in order to provide easy access to the ELT if required.
8th December I felt like painting today so I dug out my sprayer and spray painted the first two coats of top coat onto one side of the ailerons, stabilators and fin as well as spraying the doors. Apart from a few dust specks and some runs they haven't come out looking too bad. I'll leave these bits for a week then give them a light sanding down with 600 grit, remove the runs and then apply the final coat.
The Europa doesn't have provision for a landing light and, as I fly from a high density area, I decided that I wanted one. I documented my experiments to make a retractable light earlier in the log and in the end settled on having a lamp embedded into the port outrigger cuff.
A hunt around the local automotive accessories shops resulted in me coming home with two rectangular halogen lamps. I only wanted one but they are sold in pairs so I now have a backup spare. I cut back the housing so that it could be bonded into the cuff then proceeded to cut a hole inthe cuff to accommodate it. Once I was able to fit the housing in place I bonded it into its new home with a redux/flox mixture.
A few hours later when the redux had stiffened I 'applied' a section of Supafil around the front so that it could be sanded back to a pleasing shape. I use the word 'applied' advisedly here as I have found that with this sort of thing its easier to put on a bit than is required and sand back rather than discovering that you've got a low area which needs another lot of filler later.
9th December Sanded back the filler on the landing light and yes, I still has a couple of low spots. Filled the low spots.
10th - 14th December No building, working in Hastings.
15th December Gosh I like this paint! Cleaning up the odd flecks that had appeared on the surface took very little sanding with 600 grit wet and dry paper. Runs are relatively easy to get rid of but I did find that I had a spot where a paint drip had come off the gun and I hadn't noticed it. This caused me some heartache and I discovered that sanding is not the way to fix this sort of problem because you end up cutting back the surrounding area before removing the spot. I am informed that a nib remover is the tool for this sort of job so I am going to go down to the local panel beating supply shop and obtain one for my tool kit. I started work on laying up the cloth in the baggage bay.
16th - 17th December No building.
18th December Sprayed primer onto the outrigger cuff. During the day I snuck out of work and found a nib razor. This is a cute little tool with a mean looking razor blade on the base. A small screw pushes down the centre of the balde allowing you to scrape unwanted bits off your nicely painted surface. It works!
19th - 21st December No building
22nd December Sprayed two coats of paint onto the first side of the doors, stabilators and fin leaving six hours between the coats.
23rd
December At six hourly intervals I sprayed three coats onto the second side
of the stabilators, and the first side of the ailerons, flaps and trim tabs. By
the time I had finished the third coat I was getting quite confident with the
sprayer so sprayed the final coat onto the starboard side of the fuselage from
the fin forward to the back of the cockpit. The only downside of doing three
coats in a day is that it takes around fourteen hours from starting the
preparation to the end of cleaning the gun after the final coat. Carol says that
there is another one as you'll note that her car is not in the garage in this
late evening shot.
I have discovered that being very patient with the spraying is the way to get a good finish. As soon as you get impatient you end up putting too much on and it drips. With the sprayer that I am using I find that only just opening the nozzle gives the best results, any more and the Top Gloss goes on too thick and the runs begin.
In between the
coats I varnished the front door (yes, that project is still going on as well)
and removed the masking from the doors. The door where I used Kleen Edge masking
tape was easy to do but the one where I used standard masking tape was a pain to
get a clean edge out of. Tip - don't scrimp on masking tape quality when it
comes to painting. Get the best quality available even if it costs a lot
more.
Both doors need a bit of touching up in a couple of places but that can easily be accomplished with an air brush.
For those following the photography, the photos from this point on are being taken with a Canon G2 digital camera at 1600 x 1200 superfine resolution and are then reduced to 320 x 240 with Paint Shop Pro. The 918kb original of the photo to the left is here
24th - 25th December No building, Christmas.
26th December Applied one coat of paint to the final surfaces.
27th December Applied the last two coats of paint to the final surfaces.
28th
December Finished off the landing light assembly. I still need to fit
in the little circuit I developed for the light. When the lamp is turned on it
flashes at 1 second intervals. If it is turned off within the first ten seconds
and then turned on again, the light stays on constantly until it is powered off
- at which point it resets to being a flashing lamp for the next power on.
It's amazing how much exercise one can get building an airplane. At two hours per side sanding back the finish coat on just one stabilator my arms certainly got a work out today. The Polyfiber guide for Top Gloss says to start cutting back with 1200 grit paper. I found that after one week the surface was so hard that 1200 grit paper gave up before the paint. After some experimenting I found that a quick rub over with 240 grit followed by 400, 800, 1200 and 1500 in sequence brought the surface up nicely. Following this I used a coarse cutting compound, followed that up with a fine cutting compound and then applied carnauba wax. The wax had an slight yellowing effect on the surface but it is only noticeable when viewed against the unprepared surfaces. Once outside the surface looks white and is quite dazzling in the sun even though the surface finish is a satin finish rather than a gloss.
29th December After the third person asked me why the stabilator was yellow I took out my bottle of was remover and took off the carnauba wax. I am now on the hunt for another finish coat.
Cut and polished the two trim tabs. I have discovered that it really pays to put an extra coat or two on the leading edges and on the tips as it is really easy to cut through to the primer when colour sanding. I am going to have to repaint the tip of the starboard stabilator where I cut through the top coat as a result of not having enough paint on before sanding.
30th - 31st December Colour sanded the fin and the ailerons. All was going well until I turned the fin over. The centre portion of the fin looked like it had prickly heat... lots of little bumps over a 20cm diameter area. All I can assume is that something got onto the surface between spray coats. I had to sand that entire area back to primer and will repaint it.
