Control Surface Covering

The covering of the flaps and ailerons began this week.  With some help from Jeff, we got the fabric rough cut and the ailerons covered.  After the first round of shrinking, both look in pretty good shape.  The small iron I bought from Spruce has trouble maintaing 350 F, so I needed to borrow Jeff’s iron to do the second and third round of shrinking.  I covered the left flap this afternoon and did the first round of shrinking.  It all looks pretty good, although the glue on the first inboard rib (which is slightly convex compared to the butt rib and the second rib) released, so stitching is going to be a bit more work.

Next up for the ailerons is two more rounds of heat shrinking and cleanup, followed by brushing with poly-brush, then rib stitching.  Because of the convex rib, the first two inboard ribs will get stitched after the 250 shrinking, then everything will get brushed and stitched.  Then both get finishing tapes to cover the corners and stitches, followed by two spray coats of poly-brush, two spray coats of poly-spray (silver), then two spray coats of poly-tone (color).  Since there’s a 12 hour dry time between each of those coats, I’ve got a number of busy weekends.

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