Thank you for the warm welcome. I've had the plane now for a bit over two weeks. I spend time every day with the manuals (I have one for the 5 and one for the 7). Some days I focus on my very first steps and other times I flip to the end to see how the story goes.
I've watched some builder videos (Bryan Bowen's work has really been helpful). I've made about four trips the hangar to put my hands on parts and compare them to what I know about the aircraft so far. The plane is starting to make sense to me and I can visualize most of the steps.
To level set before I go on, the first builder (there have been two) had done quite a bit of work as evidenced by the parts in my possession and the second one did some work, but then became disappointed in the quality of the powder coating and decided to "back the truck up" to have the fuselage stripped and redone. I know this because he disclosed it during our discussions and also because he left a build thread here. It looks like he stopped posting at the time he discovered the errors in drilling up the wing attach fittings and also before he started removing everything from the fuselage.
Initially I was going to continue stripping the fuselage but have changed my mind (several times actually). I am electing to NOT strip the fuselage to have the powder coating redone. I base my decision on the following:
The previous owner inspected the entire fuselage for loose powder coating and corrosion, then addressed it all using white epoxy primer. Hey, at least it will be easy to see where to paint over it.
Secondly, I have spent quite a bit of time examining the fuselage and have found no evidence of other defects in the powder coating.
Third, I would either have to remove all the control surface bushings that have been installed with loctite or spend a whole lot of time masking them off.
Fourth, I'm assured that powder coating has come a long ways in the past 20 years, but I notice that the manual for the KF7 still points out the need to look in all the places that powder coating may be thin or not present.
Lastly, it sure seems like if I did have fresh powder coating I would still be spending a lot of time reaming through it, sanding at least part way through it, roughing it up, touching it up - and then gluing covering over the whole mess not to be seen again for at least a couple of decades. So as long as the visible sections look nice (and the red does look sexy), and corrosion has been addressed, what is the point?
I spent about four hours in my hangar yesterday. I hesitate to call it doing inventory because I didn't document anything. Below I'm going to itemize the good and bad, in the form of what has been done correctly and then what has either been done incorrectly or removed by the previous owner.
The good:
The original owner did good work on the horizontal stabilizer, elevator and rudder. They are all intact and undamaged. The rudder appears ready for cover but the other two pieces will need their foam/balsa end caps added and filled.
The original owner had most of the flight controls installed at one point
The bad:
The previous owner has removed all the previously installed wood ribs, bulkhead etc, access panel closeouts, etc from the aft fuselage and vertical fin. Most of those pieces were damaged in the process.
The previous owner also removed the aluminum tube side stringers and the rudder cable guide tubes
The previous owner removed the aluminum door trim pieces.
The ugly:
The wings? They're going to need their own post. Fortunately I have that plan worked out already.
Step one took place took place after only two days, and that was to make it so I could fit my Citabria back in the hangar, along with my son's MR2 and one motorcycle. I hung one wing on the wall and dismantled the rotisserie, then got the Citabria in. Currently, if you want to fly the Citabria you have to wheel one wing outside and put it back once the Citabria is pulled out. It's not ridiculous, but hardly ideal.
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