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I ended up taking care of a bunch of household chores the first few days of the week, and then finally got motivated to attack fibreglas late in the week. First it was more filler in the low areas on the empennage tips, then sand most of it off, repeat, etc.

tailfg1.thumbSaturday I finally got the empennage tips (except the rudder bottom) smooth enough that I dared shoot a coat of filler-primer on them. I knew that primer has some magical property that highlights every imperfection in the underlying surface, so I wasn't surprised to find a few pin holes in areas that I thought were perfect. Oh well. But, the tips actually looked better than I had expected they would after that first coat. Saturday night I wet-sanded the filler-primer to get it ready for the next coat.

Today I realized that I really should have bonded in the strips of aluminum that reinforce where the blind rivets attach the fibreglas tips to the tail surfaces. I had forgotten about those. :( And as always, the job takes three times as long as you think it should, and that seems to hold true even if you have already multiplied by three when coming up with your initial estimate. :)

I got the metal strips fabricated, drilled the holes where the rivets will go, and drilled another bunch of holes to help the fibreglas resin bond to the metal strips. I mixed up a small batch of resin with microfibres to bond the strips in place, using cleoces dipped in a bit of oil to hold the strips in place while the fibreglas cures. I only got about 60% of the way through the bonding before the resin started to set, it started to get dark and the mosquitoes arrived, so I stopped for the night. I didn't used to let a few mosquitoes bother me, but this West Nile Virus stuff has me looking at them in a different light.