Today was all about getting some West epoxy wipes down on the right wing and winglet.

But first, I made a fair bit of dust by sanding the right strake top a good bit.  After really getting a good bit of the micro finish knocked down I assessed the surface before applying some filler West 410/micro to the low spots.

Although I didn’t grab any shots, I also did another good round of sanding on the left wing, and am slowly dialing that in… although it still needs a bit of work to get all evened out.  The central wing area is good, but the outer wing and around the wing bolt area inboard are my stubborn problem areas.  The fix at this point is simple and standard in that more sanding should solve my elevation issues.

I also worked over the left winglet again, especially the upper outboard area.  Again, no pics on that.

I then got to work on the right wing and winglet prepping it for epoxy wipes.  At this point I wasn’t going to create any more dust on any other parts until the epoxy is fully cured on the right side (overnight).

To start, I needed to expose all the air pockets that were covered with just a very thin cover of micro.  I don’t want these showing up as blemishes in my finish later on.  I took about 30-45 minutes surveying my wing and winglet surface and simply exposed the air pockets (AKA “popping bubbles”) as I found them.  Here we have a representative before (pic 1) and after (pic 2) of how that looks.

And a whole area of popped micro pockets on my wing.  It’s not really a fun thing to do: making your wing surface look pockmarked and much worse.  But it’s definitely a good thing when all is said and done to expose these air pockets now and fill them with raw epoxy.

I taped off the perimeter of the wing at the leading and trailing edges, and also at the junction with the strake.  I then vacuumed all the surfaces and then went over them with high pressure air to remove any remaining dust.

I cut some 1x2s to create a quick hanging contraption for the right rudder, to allow me to epoxy wipe both sides of it.  I also prepped the right aileron to epoxy wipe just the top surface of that.

Fast forward 5+ hours later we have both sides of the right rudder and the top side of the right aileron epoxy wiped.

Another shot of the epoxy-wiped right rudder and aileron.

And here we have the right wing and winglet epoxy wiped.  Note that all the perimeter tape is pulled.

I’m calling it 4.5 coats since I had some epoxy left in my cup after 4 entire coats and all looked good except for some of the deeper holes and divots, so I simple dabbed a drop onto each one of those.

I only had maybe 6-8 little divot-fill dabs on both sides of the winglet, so I’m simply calling it 4 coats total for the epoxy wipes on the inboard (pic 1) and outboard (pic 2) sides of the winglet.

My epoxy wiping efforts on the right wing, winglet and accoutrements took me well into the wee hours of the mourning.  But, again, after the epoxy cures (as I sleep) I can once again make some dust on the other major components in prep for getting them epoxy wiped as well (whichever one comes out with the best surface contour first!).

Pressing ahead…