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)