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Steves S-20 Build Site.
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Date: 9-10-2016
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Number of Hours: 12.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Painted Rudder
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I have noticed that when I sand the primer a mottled looking surface appears. It looks like orange peel, but it feels smooth as butter. On the stabilizers I just knocked down the high spots, and I had a small amount of orange peel in the final clear, so for the rudder I decided to sand out all of the mottling to see if that made a difference in the final coat.
After some time sanding, I noticed that lines were developing over the tubes under the fabric (the rudder "ribs"). This happened before I was able to get all the mottled look out, but I stopped after my experience of spending several hours fixing similar lines on the elevators. I put the last coat of primer on, and a couple of extra coats over the lines. I was then able to carefully sand the lines out before moving on to color.
An interesting observation -- My favorite method of relaxation is to turn up the music and build stuff (an airplane in this case). The sub-woofer to my stereo is located directly above my paint booth. So, after the first coat of clear was applied I noticed a bit of trash and I tried to remove it with the tip of an exacto knife. When I touched the surface with the knife, it felt like I was getting an electric shock -- The sub-woofer was causing the fabric to vibrate, and I could feel the vibrations through the knife handle. In my opinion, this can't be conducive to achieving a nice flat clear coat, so the new process involves a small radio at the other end of the shop during painting.
In the end, the rudder came out really nice. My biggest problem so far has been getting trash in the clear coat, which really stands out against the bright white. I suspect that after the first flight all these little bits of trash will disappear into the normal grit and grime that comes with actually using the airplane.
Next is the fuselage. I need to spend some time to figure out how to mask everything and the sequence of events.
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Line in the primer directly over the "rib" tube.
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White is done, Lining up the masking for the red.
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Fnished product.
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