After the production line paint stripping of yesterday, today was more of a clean up the leftovers day.

I also did a bit of sanding with 120 grit, it cleans things up very nicely.

Did I mention that KYU was operated from a sheep paddock, which had left a thick cake of sheep shit as as well as vegetation (think burrs and hay seeds) on the underside of the glider, with the most juicy bits lodged in the wheel well.

It had be cleaned out eventually, so why not today?

It actually scrubbed up not too bad. Whenever I cursed our friends at STGC for not making a better effort to clean the aircraft, I reflected on this being a relatively easy job with the fuselage on its side – it would have been a real pain otherwise.

I’ll have to check what the regs and Pete say about replacement intervals for the bungee suspension. It looks in fair condition to me, hopefully we can delay fitting new cords until the Survey at the end of next year.

There are a few spots of rust on the undercarriage fork where the paint has been chipped. I hope we can clean these chips off and repaint them with the undercarriage in situ.

The way the stripping job is progressing, after another production line session with Laurie next Friday we should be able to call on St. Peter for his comments and advice, not only regarding the coating system to be used but also on tackling the “minor wood repairs”, of which I found a few more today – one 10mm dia. puncture in the plywood skin on the bottom of the fuselage, a 20mm long glue separation and a couple of chips out of epoxy filler jobs.