4 Dec 2025 - 2.5 hours
I had intended to seal a baffle into the first tank tonight when I got an unexpected few hours to do uninterrupted work. However, when I got out to the garage, I realized that I had never prepared the baffles...they were still covered in blue plastic.I prepped the left tank baffle by removing the plastic and then deburring the edges and all the holes. There are a lot of holes in the baffles... I also cleaned up the baffle with lacquer thinner to get it ready for sealing. By this time though, I didn't feel like I had enough time to get the baffle completed so I adjusted course again and prepped the right tank baffle in the same way.
I also cleaned out the tanks really well to make sure there was no debris or anything in them. I still had an hour or so of free time left at this point so I decided to add some extra fillets to the tank ribs. Since I completely covered the rib flanges when I installed them rather than just squeeze a bead a sealant and hope it spread out, I think there was a low likelihood of pinhole leaks at the rib rivets. However, if there are leaks there, it's very difficult to address them when the tanks are complete so I mixed up 22 grams of sealant and added a second layer of sealant to the flanges using my paper funnel to dispense, and a finger and popsicle stick to spread and smooth it.
It was a little disappointing to not get a tank baffle installed but still feel like I made progress and got back into the groove and mental building mode since it had been a while between work sessions. Hopefully this weekend I can get the tanks sealed up since I am working against the expiration date of my sealant.