Carlson Skunk Works

August 28th, 2013

AMF 14H MARANDA SN:1026 Making Sawdust August 28, 2013

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

This is the second post this month, so I must be making progress!

At this point the right wing is “mostly” done and has been moved to the hanger. The “mostly” means that I still have a few staples to pull, some sanding to do, and some sealer to apply. All of this can be easily done at the hanger where I can go on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and “forget” what time it is.

This summer has been hot and working on the wing in the afternoons and evenings has been quite uncomfortable. I have done a bit during my lunch time, but was limited by wearing my better clothes and needing to get back to work. I thought I was about done at one point, so I decided to double check the plans and saw that I still needed to add a couple of gussets at the inboard end of the aileron opening. I added those and things are looking pretty good.

Last Saturday afternoon I applied sealer to the top side of the wing. Getting into all the little spaces between gussets on the ribs was a chore, but I think I got the vast majority of them. When I flip the wing over and apply sealer to the bottom side I can go back over all of the ribs and apply more sealer wherever it is needed. The sealer manufacturer recommends at least two coats of sealer, so I will probably be applying sealer until the snow flies.

The sealer that I am using is water based, urethane, outdoor spar varnish that I got at Menards. The brand is Varathane and according to what I found when I Googled them it should be available at Home Depot as well, but I couldn’t find it at the Grand Island store. Since this is water based there is no odor and cleanup just takes warm water. I really like that and the cost was about $50 per gallon. I spent less than $60 for a gallon of sealer and three pretty good brushes. This appears to be quite similar to the sealer that Stewart Systems offers, but at about 1/4 the cost.

So my wife has decided that she is going to have a garage sale next weekend and the garage needs to be cleaned up and cleared out well before then! That means that I need to move the wing out of the way and vacuum up all my sawdust. Then I need to hang tarps around the perimeter of the garage to hide all of my tools, so they won’t get sold accidentally. Saturday afternoon I rolled the wing out onto the driveway while we cleaned and did the initial preparation of the garage. Then I applied the sealer while the wing was outside. After the garage was prepped I rolled the wing back into the garage for safe keeping until I could move it to the hanger.

Move the wing to the hanger? I have a 16 foot long wing and a short bed, club cab pickup. How am I going to get that thing moved? Let me show you my approach.

I had gotten a “bed extender” some time back with the intention of using it to get the canoe to the lake to do some fishing. That has not happened yet, but the intention is still there. The wing is about the same length and a bit lighter than the canoe, so I thought I would try it. It worked! My only problem was that I didn’t have a red flag to attach to the end of the wing. That is something that I will need to get before the second wing is ready to move. The crosspiece of the bed extender has a metal loop to connect a strap or rope to. I didn’t want that to mess up the leading edge plywood of the wing, so I wrapped some carpeting around the crosspiece which raised the wing up just enough to avoid it.

The bed of the truck was just wide enough to allow the wing to ride flat. This was a good thing since I have the bed cover. I couldn’t have had the wing ride upright at all.

My wife and our son’s dog accompanied me on the trip to the airport and my wife helped to unload the wing and put it on some saw horses that I had at the hanger.

So now I need some time to do some sanding and sealing and the first wing will be ready to mount onto the fuselage.

Here is a closer look at the bed extender and how I covered the metal with carpet scraps.

Now Sawdust has its fuselage and a wing reasonably close together.

When the garage sale is over I am taking the other wing down from the garage ceiling and starting work on getting it finished. I may just make my goal of having the wings done by the end of summer.

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