26 Feb 2023 - 1.1 hours
I picked back up with the rudder this afternoon by dimpling the skins and stiffeners. Here is an action shot of the right skin half dimpled:
After getting the skins dimpled, I switched to the stiffeners using my patented clamp the squeezer to the bench method. Dimpling small stiffeners with a squeezer is much easing that maneuvering the large thin skins through a C-frame. I did the skins in about 45 minutes and the stiffeners in only 15 minutes, or so.
They came out looking nice!
I shifted gears afterward and created what may be the jankiest spray booth ever... We had leftover house wrap from our garage construction so I taped together a 4'x6'x7' "room". I cut a not quite 8' busted 2x4 in half and screwed them to the exposed studs (less than 6' apart) to hold up the enclosure slightly less than 7' off the ground to make a paint booth that is loose-fitting and saggy in all three dimensions. Brilliant. I put my chicken wire spray table with fan and cheap filters inside setting on half of the empennage shipment box to catch overspray.
I should be able to get this small volume warm with a small space heater and then quickly prime the parts while keeping the overspray contained, but this remains untested as of yet.
I wanted to try priming a few small parts tonight but decided I was too tired and watched Clarkson's Farm instead.