Still Gooping On...

Second day on the Pro-Seal front. My is this stuff no fun to work with. The only thing I haven't noticed yet that was reported by others is the sulfuric smell. I guess that's because I am wearing a respirator the whole time I work with the stuff. As I am doing it in the shop due to the nicer, A/C'ed temperatures, I thought this might be a wise move and could help to avoid me dying before the plane is done.
I was using the whole two hours of pot life and almost finished the second page in this section. Riveting on the aft attach angle couldn't get done in time as it required some squeezed rivets and that would have taken more time than I had to stay within the two hours pot life.




The blue tape helps to keep the work bench clean after the rivets have been pulled and working on the aft side.
One big hiccup I have to report. On page 37-03 on the left bottom side they ask to put some washers under the shop side of the top rivets that hold baffles in the front and on the left side of the tank. That's an easy task to put these NAS1149FN432P washers on the rivet before squeezing, IF THEY HAD PROVIDED THEM!
It's not just that Van's had forgotten to put them in one of the gazillion bags of the Finish Kit but this washer type wasn't at all listed in the bags' content list. I was even smart while searching. I know that the NAS1149 type washer nomenclature has an old-style naming system in the AN960 nomenclature. I even looked that one up and found that an AN960-4 washer would be the old style name. Browsed the bags' content list again, no such washer. I found some AN960-4L which is the flatter version of this washer in the left overs from the Fuselage Kit. So I knew how they look like. I tried to find something close enough in my hardware boxes as I figured that this particular set of washers wouldn't need to be AN type hardware. They are just meant to spread the load a little over the flange when the sloshing fuel hits the baffles.
I decided to manufacture two washers from scrap aluminum as I couldn't find anything that was close enough to be used. One of the extra servo brackets that came with the recent servo kit had perfect holes punched into it and had just the right thickness and stiffness. I cut out a little square around the prepunched hole and then used pliers to hold the piece against the SB deburring wheel to get a good shape. I made them a little bit oval in shape to spread the load even better on the flange.
Sorry, forgot to take a photo :-( And now it's all gooped up on the actual flange.

This all happened in the afternoon after a nice lunch. In the morning I was a little late to do the paint (due to the rising temps) but it was still within limits and I took my chance. Looks real nice again. In the afternoon it was cured enough to dare opening the paint booth and I was really happy once again with the Stewart paint system.



Not much more to do for today.

Now I am thinking about the fuel window. I am really not sure if I want to have this thing and I might decide to use some scrap skin to just cover it up, inside and out.