I’ll reiterate that although my primary task currently is finishing up the strake storage compartments, I’ve also been doing a number of other tasks to get the various aircraft surfaces ready for primer and paint.

Here are a couple of examples on the right wing.  There was a distinct low spot at the junction of the bottom right winglet and wing, so that required a micro refill. Tomorrow I’ll sand it smooth and re-epoxy wipe it.

Speaking of epoxy wipes… I had a couple of small divots that I filled with micro and after sanding decided I needed to epoxy wipe a decent swath around those holes to help even out the surface of the lower right wing.  I’ll sand this down then wet sand with 150 grit in the next day or so.

On the strake storage hatch flanges I did a final fill on all the perimeter edges, both right and left sides, which I’ll sand down tomorrow.

On the left strake hatch door, since I used the original skin piece that I cut out for the door, I removed about 0.1″ of foam on both the forward (pic 1) and aft (pic 2) edges of the door and filled those with micro.  Tomorrow I plan on sanding and epoxy wiping those edges.

I then spent a good little bit of time prepping and taping up both the right and left strake storage compartments in prep for primer and paint.

I had planned on painting these tonight as well, but the Rust-oleum gray granite paint needs at least 2 good coats, with 15 minutes in between each coat.  It was getting late, so I decided to do the actual painting tomorrow.

Here is the right strake storage compartment shot in primer.

And the left strake storage compartment primed for paint.

As I mentioned in the last post or two, as I finish up the final tasks for these strake storage compartments and hatch doors I’ll have more time to focus on other important pre-primer/paint finishing tasks in my attempt to get this bird done.