I really was exhausted. We did a LOT of work on the plane in the last couple of days, and I really probably got slighly de-hydrated too.

Let me start – friday we started at about 9AM by final preparations for all the parts. This included finding some parts, cleaning labels off, engraving labels as required, dimpling, deburring. Etc. Etc. This ended up taking most of the day. By that I mean it took until about 5:30PM or so.

Then we filled up the trailer and the car with parts and went to prepare the parts to be painted. This involved soaking the parts all in acid to begin with. I had done this twice before and had thought about things so I wore some huge gum-boots. I was also wearing dark disposable overalls, and a face shield at various times. I may even have been wearing a breathing mask…

I think it was richar’s sister who commented that I looked like Darth Vader. Well, at least my feet stayed dry. The preparing the aluminium started about 7pm. On a night in the middle of winter. The first part involved scrubbing the parts with the acid, then putting them all up on a line. And washing them down. Which is why I was wearing gumboots.

That part was done in the garage, and was not too bad. Part two needed another line to put the parts on… So we went out the back, and soacked each part for about 2-3 minutes in Alodine, and then put the parts on the clotes line and washed them down. This was not too bad, apart from a very slight rain at times. Hey, my facemask kept the rain off me, and the hood from the overalls kept me warm.

We finished alodining just before 11pm, and left about 11:20 after cleaning up.

Saturday was not a day we were expecting to paint, but the weather was good, and expected to get bad so richard was free for the day. About 10AM we headed out to pick up the parts on the way to a friend of Richards where we could spray paint; although a short diversion was needed to visit Bunnings for some more gloves and other stuff.

Then we got set up and grabbed some lunch before starting the painting. We must have done close to 3 1/2 hours of continuous painting. Well, it seemed like that… Richard was the one doing most of the spraying, and I know he had one break… I was mostly just waiting for him to finish with things, acting as an assistant. Spray, Spray, Spray. We did about 2-3 liters of paint I think which is a reasonable amount when most of the parts are a bit fiddly, and need effort.

I think that we went really well doing all the parts in that time period. I know what I will be doing for the next few weekends – Assembling a plane. Richard wants to get all the parts he has put together in the next five weeks and I want to do all I can to help him.

No photos, but I will see if I can find one from the last expedition to post here…