Day 3
These pictures show the progress as of the end of the third day. Basically the day was still more scraping.
Some additional scraping tools were fabricated, this time from some 1/8" Plexiglass. Even that 1/8" was still too thick to have any maneuverability between the spar and the wing skins, so in addition to sharpening them, the thickness was also ground down. See the picture of my favorite tools.
The long thin pieces had a long edge sharpened. These were then fed in above or below the spar and sawed back and forth to scrape along the length of the spar to clean off the spar and wing skin.
Some very surgical use was made of a hacksaw blade. The globs of sealant directly above and below the spar resisted all attempts to scrape into them. To get around this, a hacksaw blade was fed into the area and used to saw into the sealant. This was done very slowly and with extreme care to ensure that the blade was in the sealant, and not getting onto anything metal. Once a cut was made into the sealant (parallel to the spar), we were able to remove the bits with the plastic scrapers.
| Top/aft of the spar. The glob is beginning to yield. |
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| Bottom/aft of the spar. We ought to be seeing daylight soon. Either that or we'll break through to China. |
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| Top/forward of the spar. Most of the progress now will not be visible, because it's in where no one can see. |
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| Bottom/forward of the spar. Looks pretty clean, but I'm not convinced yet. |
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