Cleaning and Sanding Parts

Each night I’ve been able to spend an hour or so on doing something on the plane.  I've been spending most of my time cleaning parts to prepare for painting.  I got the rear window frames all cleaned up for painting.  Funny, the exterior paint came off really easily, but the primer was harder to remove.  I sanded these all by hand.  I had to scrape of a putty/window glazing that had the consistency and look of plumber's putty.  I have all the window frames all cleaned ready for painting.  Here's the rear window frame, one is clean and the other in as-received condition.

I also cleaned and painted the fuel valve selector switch and the starter switch.  I painted them with rattle-can paint and I think they look great finished.  I will prime the fuel vale selector extension after I prep some more parts.

On Memorial weekend I got two interior cabin pieces cleaned up.  These had a lot of glue from carpeting on them (and old blue carpet) that I had to remove.  One is the control column cover that is on the floor between the pilot and co-pilot's feet, and the other is the oleo strut landing gear cover located under the seats.  I hand sanded and scraped these using aluminum oxide sanding sponges and scotch-brite pads.  Now I need to get some Alumiprep and Alodine to prep these and all the aluminum parts for painting.  The inside of the control column has some phenolic stiffeners riveted at the top that need replacing.  I'll do that at some time before installation and painting.

I also took a stab at sanding the co-pilot side door too to see how difficult it was.  At first I tried sanding it with roloc-type scotchbrite discs on my air angle grinder but I used 3 up just doing the very bottom closest to the lower hinge.  Then I tried a spatchula knife and that worked better (working hard not to scratch the aluminum).  This door has a patch near the bottom too so it's my least favorite door so if I really screw it up, I'm not going to be that upset about it.  The knife worked OK, so I that a flat razor would work even better!  I hardly pushed on it and it just flaked off the paint like crazy.  I sanded out some of the scratches some with sanding pads and scotchbrite but stopped there wondering if there is a better way to strip aircraft paint since I have more large pieces to strip like the other door, control surfaces, cowling, etc.  Enjoy the photos of the door below I worked on:

Not bad for just scraping and sanding, but there's got to be a better way to strip the paint.  Maybe try chemical stripper next.

I finished installing the ACK ELT antenna bracket I made in an earlier post after I got a plastic snap ring from Aircraft Spruce that I thought would work.  Here's the finished bracket I installed with pop rivets in the former along the spine of the fuselage.

 Last thing I did is to take one of the seats apart.  I chose the pilot side seat. I took the black seat cover off and think I found the original seat broadcloth fabric.  It is a blue lined fabric which explains the other blue-painted parts inside the cabin.  Somebody had used safety wire to wire on a split piece of hose on the seat back frame so that there was some rubber cushioning when you put the seat back.  If I want to have a rubber cushion again, I want a more elegant solution which will take some searching.  The seat frames looked OK, but after I cleaned them in the blasting cabinet I found one of the straps were broken and several more were cracked.  The seats had the original horse hair padding used for cushions when it was new.  I saved the old original seat fabric if I want to attempt to make my own seats or outsource it.

 Seat frame back uncleaned

Bead blasted frame nice and shiny clean metal

This strap is broken completely at the frame

This strap is cracked at the frame

Close up of the crack

With this new discovery of broken straps, I posted a question on the Stinson Yahoo forum and several said the straps can be easily fixed by welding new straps on top of the break or replacing the straps altogether.  I have sourced some 4130 steel straps 1" wide at Aircraft Spruce I am considering to use to make the repair.  However, before I purchase it, I will take apart and clean the other seat to see what repairs (if any) need to be made to that seat frame.