I’ve temporarily set aside the rudder and moved on to preparing the parts for the horizontal stabilizer (HS), after finding a poorly formed rudder hinge bracket, about a week before TAF folks returned from holiday break on January 13. Once they were back and after a few emails and phone calls – TAF (USA) has a new part on the way to me.
The preparation processes for the HS are the same as I’ve detailed for the rudder (RD). Several days of indoor and outdoor work have all the parts ready for assembly.
We got some snow and for a couple of days, it got too cold in the shop for painting. Inside the shop temperature dropped to 42 degrees F – overnight. I really needed more than my electric 1500W ceramic and 1200W infrared heaters.
I made a good deal a small portable propane heater and was able to continue with priming all of the HS parts. In the morning, I can bring the shop up to 60 degrees F in just a few minutes.