I guess I got a little burned out. I was away from the project for a few days, except for spending some time working on instrument panel layout. I don't have anything to show for it yet, but a few ideas are forming up in my tiny brain. Today I got back out to the garage.
Speaking of the instrument panel, that's today's first-builder-horror-show. He must have intended to use a traditional radio stack down the middle, as he had glued and riveted two pieces of aluminum angle to the back, presumably to support radio trays. I wish I had taken a photo of the panel before I started working on it, but I forgot. The back side was awash in what looked like Gorilla Glue, and he had used flush rivets from the front, except...
...wait for it...
...without countersinking the aluminum! The result was that the rivet heads were sticking up proud of the surface at odd angles.
You'll also notice in the photo that there are four columns of rivet holes instead of two. I guess the first two columns were in the wrong place. By a full quarter of an inch. Because good layout is so much work.
Anyway, I drilled out the rivets, knocked the Gorilla Glue loose, used a sharp wood chisel to remove most of the caked-on glue, then sanded the back side with 120-grit to remove the rest of the residue. On the front I found that none of the rivet holes had been deburred, and the panel was stained and had glue spots on it as well, so I block-sanded with 320-grit, in line with the grain.
I think it looks a LOT better, but I'm still unsure whether I'll be able to use it. I'm planning to put something over the aluminum anyway, so the extra holes won't show, but it will depend whether they interfere with any of the cutouts I need to make for the screen and other items. Fingers crossed that I haven't wasted an hour of work.
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Next I got back to work on the flaperon tips. About half an hour with my trusty wood rasp (this airplane is the most use that tool has ever gotten!) took down all the high spots and sharp edges on the Hysol (it was no easier to work with microballoons than without). I followed that with some 120-grit sanding, which gave me roughly the shapes I wanted. Unbelievably, the trailing edges are quite strong and seem to be stuck to the aluminum, so I'm going to press on with them for now and keep my fingers crossed.
The two tips aren't identically shaped, but since they'll be ~25 feet away from each other, I'm not going to worry about it!
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I mixed up 1.5 oz of SuperFil and liberally coated the tips to fill in all the low spots. I was also careful to coat a bit of the aluminum as well, so I can sand it back to a perfectly smooth transition from aluminum to tip.
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