About
Build log for an RV-10

By
Jae Chang
web@jline.com

Contents (Index)
These are links to the major kits for the project.

Section 6: VS Parts Primed (6 day / 32 tail and total )

The previous night, i alodined the VS parts. However, i unintentionally over-alodined the parts. The alodine may adversely affect my choice of using a self-etch primer. Oh well, i will see how it results.

The self-etch primers resulted in a light-grey coat. I sprayed a tempo zinc chromate green primer on the spar doubler on the right. I did this out of curiosity and variety. The doubler was the most alodine converted, so it seemed t be the best candidate. The hulk green color alone puts me off of the zinc chromate.

The results of the self-etch primers are surprisingly good, to my eyes.

My strategy on the VS skin was:

1. peel off plastic
2. alumiprep
3. rinse
4. dry
5. wipe with cloth
6. alodine-pen the rivet lines
7. dry
8. primer

The alodine pen gives me, the possibly false, satisfaction of an additional layer of protection. At least, it is extremely simple to apply.

The left side of the VS skin above was sprayed with the SEM brand primer and the right with 988. On the large skin area, it is hard to tell the two apart. The only difference being the nozzle: the SEM has a circular spray and the 988 a vertical line spray. However, on the smaller parts, SEM seemed to spray on too wet. 988 seems to dry almost immediately.

This is my very first riveted part with the hand squeezer: top of the bottom hinge and its stop tabs. Unfortunately, in the bottom picture, some of the shop heads are not exactly flat. It's only the stop tabs, so those are good enough.

Revelation #4. I may want to consider taking the blue plastic off before deburring edges. It seems there are small bits of burnt blue plastic stuck to the Al in places. Not many, for instance on the rear spar doubler, there were 2 places where I had to use my finger nails to get the plastic off. There were a couple pieces I had missed so they were not alodined nor primered before i discovered them.

posted at: 20:50 | path: /aviation/build/airframe/tail | permanent link to this entry | add a comment