Chapter 25 – Left strake micro’d up

Today I continued on in my micro finishing fury by knocking out the microing of the left strake.

But first I spent a good hour+ cheese grating the just-micro’d right strake.

I needed to get some prerequisite tasks completed before I could get to microing up the left strake.  First on the list was to recut the aft strake-to-wing junction 1 ply BID layup that I did a couple of days ago.

I taped a metal “yardstick” in place as a straight line cutting guide (pic 1) and then made the cut (pic 2).

While I was right there in the immediate area with my ‘Fein’ saw in hand, I also cut the flange reallocation layup that I did where I moved a piece of the strake flange over to the wing [I had meant to get a closeup pic of this now non-gap when I put the top cowl on during the left strake micro finishing… but forgot].

I then pulled my air file out of its semi-retirement, knocked off the dust and put some tool oil in it.  I spent a good 15 minutes (what a workout!) knocking down a good bit of the micro on the outboard side of the left winglet.  The majority of the finishing on this area from here on out will be hand sanding with sanding blocks.

I then did the same thing on the outboard side of the right winglet.  Again, because the workshop wall is so close to this winglet, I needed 2 pics to get a shot of the entire winglet.  Also, the same holds true here as on the left side, where I’ll be using mainly hand sanding blocks to finish the contouring of the winglet.

I received two separate phone calls from my son and my daughter, so I was on the phone a good bit… since airplane building has kept me quite occupied lately.  Thus, although it was getting later into the evening, I wanted to get micro laid down on the left strake top.  I prepped the strake top, cleaned it up and then taped the seam edge with the wing.

Again, I started off by whipping up flocro and putting a bead around the strake-wing seam edge.

And a few hours later I had completed my task of microing up the left strake top and leading edge.  I also added some micro I had left over to the fuselage wall just forward of the strake junction with the fuselage.  Note that the strake-to-wing seam edge tape has been pulled.

Here’s another angle of the left strake in micro… no more crazy multi-colored strakes from this point on.  Kinda weird to see in a way!

Here we have a closer shot of the junction between strake and wing, with the gap tape pulled and the razor knife run through it multiple times to clean it up.

It was very late (or technically very early morning), but I wanted to get another round of micro in on a large component to allow me to rest my shoulder and back with some sleep before tackling the left wing top, leading edge and inboard winglet… which is next on the docket.

Getting there… one bowl of micro at a time!

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