Chapter 13/25 – Primed aft NG30 cover

Although I didn’t get a lot done today I think it was fairly significant.  I started off by sanding the entire aft NG30 cover down in preparation for priming.  That was nearly an hour effort in and of itself.  It’s interesting how “straight” these components can look to the naked eye, but once you apply micro and sand it down, then even the subsequent sanding after a few coats of epoxy, you see how off it was from the beginning.  No worries of course because that’s exactly what the finishing process is all about.

After I sanded it, I washed it down with Simple Green and set it outside on my truck tailgate in the sun to dry thoroughly.

I then took the aft NG30 cover around to my side yard and hit it with 3 coats of primer.

Here’s a couple more shots after I brought it back into the garage.

I then wet sanded the tool box lid with some 500 grit sandpaper.  It looked like all the imperfections were gone, so I cleaned it up, and printed out a label for it (which I mistakenly roughed up just barely with the 500 grit sandpaper).

Labels are notoriously difficult to clear coat, so I misted it a couple of times before hitting it with a full application of clear coat.

However, I think unlike the regular Rustoleum paint with its “few minutes” between coats, the clear coat has a quicker flash time in between coats (my current guess, but I’ll have to research more) because what started out as minor workable orange peeling turned into cracks that would put those in the Gobi Desert to shame!  In short, adding the label and clear coat Round 1 was a GIANT FAIL!

Ok, lessons learned and back to the drawing board . . .

Tomorrow I’ll try to epoxy wipe some pin holes on the aft NG30 cover before heading out to my EAA meeting.   But besides that, it will be a light build day since mid-afternoon on I’ll be hanging out with some friends.

 

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