Thu 12 February 2004 |
| First task this morning was to re-etch the remaining RHS empennage parts for spraying. | 
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| As per usual the wind started coming up at just the wrong time, so the actual spray had to wait. The parts were hung up to dry mid afternoon and we got a chance to do the spraying. Dad did most of it, although I tried my hand and started to get the hang of it. | 
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| The right hand side and upper components completed and ready for assembly. Now we just need some good weather for spraying the left side bits...... | 
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| Whilst the wind was roaring I started to look at the rudder pedal components. As the aircraft will be flyable from the left or right seat we have the dual brake system option. | 
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| I cleco'd the 4 rudder parts together and carefully cleaned up the edges on the sander and scotchbrite pads. Our intention at this point is to use hard anodising for these surfaces so I'm being careful to keep them scratch free as much as possible. | 
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| I also cut the 8x 4" angle stiffeners. The kit ships with 1x 9" piece of angle, plus the 2x 9" pieces in the dual brake kit. The remaining 9" I took from the 3/4 X 3/4 stock that I had left over from the seat cross braces. I hope I don't need to keep that length for anything else. | 
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| We finished the day scuffing and prepping some of the left hand side components. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will co-operate and we will be able to complete some of the spraying. This is needed to move to the next stage of assembly. | 
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| I also spent a significant chunk of the day prodding & chasing Aircraft Spruce on the damaged pitot. Finally (after 2 weeks) they accepted that the part needed to be replaced and provided a returns procedure. I then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to work out the international shipping process with FedEx. All rather frustrating, I'd rather be building an aircraft and it will be at least 2 more weeks until we have a pitot. Not a biggy on this occasion but it could have been, oh well by the end of the project I'll understand the GST and NZ & USA customs processes in much greater detail :-| | |
