Priming - Tail Cone Small Parts, Bulkheads and Frames 10-17-3

I took a few days off for vacation so didn't get much time to work on the plane for about a week, but now back in the garage I started work on prepping the tail cone parts for priming.

There are a lot of parts that need to be primed, so I decided to split them into batches

  • small parts, bulkheads and frames
  • stiffeners and longerons
  • bottom/side skins
  • top skins

Starting with all the small parts, bulkheads and frames, I followed the usual procedure of first wiping them with acetone to get rid of obvious fingerprints and markings, followed by EkoEtch to remove the alclad coating.

Small tail cone parts ready to be treated with EkoEtch

Bulkheads and frames treated with EkoEtch outdoors as it was easier to rinse them with a hose

Tail cone small parts, bulkheads and frames left to dry after EkoEtch

With the EkoEtch prep complete, I sprayed all the parts with EkoPrime, but switched to a Smoke Gray color rather than the Charcoal Gray color I had so far been using for the control surfaces. Smoke Gray is a much lighter color and I feel this will make for a brighter interior when the RV-10 is closed up.

Tail cone small parts, bulkheads and frames curing after being sprayed with EkoPrime

The outdoor temperature on the day I applied the EkoPrime barely rose to 70 degrees, but I was happy with how the EkoPrime went on. The only issue I found was that while spraying, the Smoke Gray color is very similar to the etched aluminum, so it was hard to see that all surfaces had been covered, and I had to make sure that I was methodical in my spraying to ensure that nothing was missed.

Primer used ~270g + 27g distilled water

Time Taken:     8.7 hours

Dates:                April 5 2023 - April 15 2023

RV-10 Build Total Time:    352.9 hours

Priming Total Time:           35.1 hours (not included in build time totals)