Today we finished preparing all horizontal stabilizer parts!

Hours total: Probably 30?

Tools used:

• Deburring swivel tool
• Scotchbrite grinder wheel
• Battery-powered Craftsman detail sander
• Corded Ryobi sander for even smaller details
• Lots of Scotchbrite, really can’t get enough of this stuff

Yes, yes, horizontal stabilizer is the first assembly, has the smallest number of parts etc., but we are still proud :) We deburred all the parts (some of this we have actually done before, i.e. before moving to the hangar).

Since this seems to be a point many blogs gloss over, let’s take a moment to emphasize which tools we used for deburring: swivel tool for the holes and inner edges, and scotchbrite grinder wheel for outer edges.

As we would like to prime everything, we also scotchbrited all surfaces (which we will have to redo anyway immediately before we prime, so the utility of this step is largely debateable, but oh well). We were using a battery-powered Craftsman detail sander (picked by Peter mostly for battery compatibility with our craftsman drill) with scotchbrite velcro’d to the bottom for large surfaces.

For areas too tight to get to with the Craftsman sander we got a Ryobi tiny detail sander. Now, Ryobi sanders are designed assuming there is a sticky surface on the sand paper, and scotchbrite pads are not sticky. Solution? Double sided sticky tape!

There are places where one cannot get to even with Ryobi; those we had to scotchbrite by hand.

The plan for priming is thus (we’ll write a whole separate post about this): right before priming, we will scotchbrite the parts one more time, then clean them with acetone, and then prime. Some parts also need to be dimpled before that. The work continues, gentle readers! Do you miss the days of the horizontal assembly? How is your work progressing? Feeling the chill bite of October where you are? Leave a note in the comments!