Section: rudder, elevator, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 8

I spent the whole day sanding the skin coat and priming the elevator tips.

Section: ruder, elevator, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 8

Lots of sanding today. I spent most of the day knocking down the skin coat on the rudder and horizontal stabilizer. I quit sanding early enough that I had time to apply a coat of sanding primer before quitting time. I'm not sure what paint system I will use for finishing the airplane, so I just applied a generic sanding sealer I purchased at the local auto parts shop. The goal is to seal the parts and protect them from UV until I can get the airplane to the paint shop. If the paint shop needs a different primer, this can be easily sanded off and a different one applied later.

Here's the freshly primed parts.

Section: rudder, elevator, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 6

Today I did a little more sanding and then applied an epoxy skin coat to seal the micro balloons and fill any remaining pores in the gel coat. I used a small foam roller brush to work the epoxy into all the holes and evenly coat the tips. I purchased the roller brush and several packages of rollers at my neighborhood Lowes. I dispose the roller after use.

Here's the parts with the skin coat of epoxy applied. The skin coat has a texture from the roller. When I sand these parts tomorrow, I will know I've gone far enough when the texture just disappears.

Section: rudder, elevator, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 8

Here I am starting a long day of sanding.

I sand the micro balloons smooth leaving a nice feathered edge blending into the fiberglass tip. The micro fills in any indentations or surface imperfections and hides the extra thickness of the fiberglass tape over the seam.

As usual, Woody kept a watchful eye on the sanding today.

Section: rudder, elevator, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 6

I sanded smooth the resin top coat on the fiberglass. I then applied a generous coat of epoxy/micro balloons to fair the fiberglass tape into the fiberglass tips. I also applied epoxy/micro to other areas of the tips to fill in holes and fair the surfaces. It is cold in the garage, so I brought all the parts into the warm house to ensure a good cure overnight.

Section: avionics
Hours: 8

The wiring harness arrived from SteinAir! It includes a new plug for the cooling fan and a short length of wiring from the old plug to the new one.  Looks good.

I moved the sim card from the old connector to the new one and plugged it in. Then I installed the new harness and put the panel back together again. I'm getting faster at reassembling the panel, but it still took all day :-(

Success!!! The GTN fan now runs. Hopefully my panel wiring woes are behind me.

Section: elevator, rudder, horizontal stabilizer
Hours: 4

I painted all the fiberglass with a thick coat of resin to fill the weave. I'll leave it to cure overnight before doing anymore.