Chapter 25 – Bottom right strake micro

Today I was able to “micro” finish the bottom right strake surface just as I did the left previously.

I started by sanding down the surface of the bottom strake skin in prep for micro finishing. I say “micro” as a generic term here because I actually used only West 410 on the bottom of the right strake… but I’ll get to that below.

I then added a flocro edge at the intersections of the strake with both the cowling and the wing.  As with the left side I used the fast West 205 hardener for this flocro.

Also as I did on the left side, I started at the very front inboard side and then applied the West 410 moving aft to give the flocro time to cure as much as possible.  Here you can see that I’ve already removed the blue border tape around the edge of the flocro.

Here we have the bottom right strake covered in West 410.  I’m fairly certain I was able to get a little bit thicker application here, but as we know most of it will get sanded off anyways.  This photo shows the strake leading edge blue painters tape in place…

Which I then removed.

A bit later I spent about 50 minutes sanding the left strake micro/410.  It sanded fairly well, but just as on the aft fuselage I need to use some straight West 410 to fill in some divots and deep scratches.

Here’s another shot of the sanded and contoured bottom left strake.  I have to say the surface is pretty darn smooth and I think it’s really close to being ready for epoxy wipes.

After I finished sanding the left side, I spent nearly a half hour “cheese grating” the West 410 fill on the bottom right strake.  I was able to knock down quite a bit of the ridges and lumpier application, so I think I’m getting a good head start on the sanding and contouring of this right side.

Here’s one last shot of the cheese-grated bottom right strake West 410 fill.  Tomorrow evening I’ll sand it to near-final contour as well.

I also plan on finishing up the touchup paint and clear coating of the landing brake tomorrow, so hopefully I can get that installed and get the bottom fuselage micro finish knocked out ASAP.

 

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