Main goal for today was to get everything primed; as I’ve mentioned before, my “paint booth” is my driveway, and thus I depends on both good weather and daylight to be able to shoot primer. Since the days are still short, right now that means that priming is a weekend-only activity, and not getting primer shot today would have basically meant no work until next weekend.
First, though, I had a bit more prep work to do. Last time I final-drilled my new E-606PP, but it still needed to be deburred, dimpled, and countersunk. The riblet I made needed the same treatment. Most of this is pretty basic stuff, but since last time I finished off an already questionable E-606PP with a horrible countersink job, I was veeery careful with those. I didn’t ruin any holes today, but a few were a little funky. Countersinking in general seems to be giving me trouble; that in turn concerns me because, to my knowledge, one of the first tasks on the wing kit involved making a lot of countersinks on the spar. I most definitely don’t want to mess that up…I guess I’ll be spending some time practicing countersinking on scrap between now and when the wings show up.
That done, it was out to the driveway to scrub everything down. After blasting the newly-cleaned parts with air to get most of the water off, I went back in the garage and got to work on the elevator skin, which needed to be deburred and dimpled. Next I started looking at assembling the trim motor; the instructions indicate that this is best done before the elevator is closed up. This also seems to be one of those situations where the training wheels come off instruction-wise. The only thing the instructions say about the trim system is basically “Refer to the drawing to see how your trim system goes together. You should probably do this now.” Granted, it’s not a complex piece by any means, just a couple of angle pieces that need to be drilled to the trim plate; but still, I guess the level of handholding up to this point kind of spoils you. Ever mindful of getting ahead of myself and fouling something up again, I decided to go inside, take a break, and do some research on putting this piece together. This had the added benefit of allowing some more time for my cleaned parts to dry before I shot primer. I was surprised to find basically no information about putting the trim system together. I guess that indicated that it was probably extremely simple and I was just getting really worked up.
Back outside, I started shooting primer and tinkering with the trim some more in between coats. Finally, I saw the information I’d been missing in the plans: some dimensions indicating the placement of the trim motor mounting angles. With that, it all became quite clear. I spent the rest of the priming time getting those parts lined up, making sure the trim motor shaft wouldn’t interfere with the slot in the plate, and finally clamping the pieces in place and drilling the rivet holes.
The “finished” trim motor/plate assembly (not really finished, just clecoed together):
With that, the priming was done and it was time to head inside. Josie and I have dinner plans tonight, so I need to get myself showered so we can head out. I should be able to get the trim assembly finished and the elevator riveted together this week, then it’s on the the trim tab. The bit of reading I’ve done on that piece indicates that it’s a good bit more complex than it looks. We shall see…