More rudder bottom finishing

Nothing exciting to take photos of this time around. Last night I sanded down the previous night’s epoxy coat to get rid of some mild runs that developed, then shot my first coat of primer. This turned out fairly well – the bulkhead I added had no pinholes whatsoever, but I did find a few back in the tail light area. Additionally, there were some chips around a few of the rivet holes that needed some attention, so after letting the primer cure for a few hours, I mixed up a small batch of body filler and took care of the couple pinholes. For the countersink chip fixes, I put a little glob of filler in each one, then inserted an unused CS4-4 rivet that had been dipped in acetone; this roughly formed the filler to the countersink profile.

That primer coat also revealed – as they tend to do – a few more imperfections that needed cleaning up, so tonight was another sanding night. In addition to cleaning up the areas where I added filler, I also took care of a few lumpy spots, and then shot yet another coat of primer. At a glance, things are looking good, but there are just a couple more spots I want to give some attention to, and after that I think I can apply the final coat and call the finish done.

At that point I’ll just need to install the conduit for the wire routing, and this thing should be able to install.

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