After donning all of the safety garb, grabbed a screwdriver and was about to open the can of JetFlex paint and it begin to sprinkle. Darn … (not the actual word used). Quickly hustled everything back into the hangar before the sky cut lose. After the rain passed, I waited a little longer and continued deburring firewall forward parts.
A second attempt was made … and guess what? Just before I was about to thin the paint, more sprinkles. More choice words and once again schlepped everything back into the hangar waited for the much harder rain to subside. Before making a third attempt, I broke out the cell phone and looked at the radar on my Garman Pilot App and could see there was one more quickly approaching squall line then what appeared to be about an hour window of opportunity. After the squall passed, and the roof stopped dripping, schlepped everything outside for the third time and what turned out to be a successful attempt. Had just enough time to spray two coats of paint onto the tank and the three small pieces then place the wet parts back into the hot box to dry. Just as I was finishing with disassembling the spray gun for cleaning and had most of the gun in solvent … it began to sprinkle. Fortunately, got everything quickly back inside the hangar before the sky cut loose again.
Dateline Friday: Finished deburring parts and scuffing them up with a Scotch-Brite pad. After looking at the plans, it appears the parts that make up the drip trays for the carburetors required some trimming. The pieces used to make up the drip tray for the right carburetor required even more trimming. Part of the upper outboard flange on the FF-01226A drip tray is to be removed and a new rivet hole drilled.
Both of the FF-01226B drip tray stiffeners require a sliver of metal to be removed from the bottom edge of the stiffeners and, in addition, the FF-01226B drip tray stiffener for the right drip tray requires more trimming … by way of removing a section of the upper portion of the stiffener.
After trimming the above parts, the edges of the remaining firewall forward parts were sanded smooth and then all the parts were scuffed with a maroon Scotch-Brite pad to prep the parts for primer.
Dateline Saturday: All firewall forward parts that were receiving Akzo primer were thoroughly cleaned with Acetone and placed in a plastic bin. Once again I found myself forced to find a window of opportunity between intermittent afternoon rain showers to achieve what will likely be the last spray session for the season. Although none of the pieces were large, there were quite a few pieces to paint, so I knew I would need close to an hour and a half window taking into consideration the 30 minute induction time required for the Akzo primer.
It began to rain 10 minutes after the above photo was taken … and it rained off and on all afternoon. By 3:40 pm it stopped raining and it appeared there was a big enough window of opportunity so mixed the Akzo primer and during the 30 minute induction time, schlepped everything outside and set up for the spray job using the HVLP spray gun. This time the timing was perfect, got all the parts quickly coated with primer and placed in the hot box, just finished cleaning the spray gun and had carried most everything back into the hangar when it began raining again.
