I got woke up this morning by the a phone call from my friend at the powder coater. He told me that I could come in and sandblast my fuselage myself if I wanted to save some money. I jumped out of bed and headed right over. He had me finish up some of his projects before we rolled my fuselage in. I now have a whole new respect for the guys at the powder coating shop... this is tedious work. It takes forever to just clean a section and it is extremely messy.
I got most of the tail sandblasted, and some of the front done. I wanted to blast the tail to see exactly how much I would need to repair in a few weeks. The left longeron has a few holes in about the last 6 feet of tubing. The great part is, there is a tubing splice at about the 7 foot mark, so I'll just cut this tube out on both sides and have them replaced. Better to do both now, rather than one now, and another one in about 5 years when the plane is recovered. I knew when I got the deal I got on the fuselage, that there would be some repairs required. So far, so good though.
I plan on going in tomorrow morning early and finishing up blasting the fuselage. Then I plan on taking it to Lake Hood where I'll build some floorboards and start with some of the interior. I have a date at the welder's of July 15, and I don't want to waste any time.
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