So much for “just giving the fuselage a light sand…..” St. Peter declared that all the grey paint had to be removed as well. I tried his patented acetone/gladwrap method but it proved not suitable for the task. So I got a load of MEK to see if this would give more chemical grunt, but…

Another productive paint stripping day. There are a few spots to be detailed, but otherwise the old topcoat is GONE! Next item on the list is to ask St. Peter to come and sanctify the work so far, help us prepare a re-coating plan for the fuselage and give us some advice about how to…

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…

The moment of truth has arrived – rotisserie is completely assembled on the Bocian ….. and after a few adjustments and setting the tail at the right height ….. it works! It does take a bit of muscle to rotate the glider, but on the plus side, there’s zero chance of it getting away from…

Finished tail hoop fixture. We should be able to put the fuselage hoop onto its stand tomorrow.

Made 2 pairs of gussets out of 4 mm steel plate. They are bolted to the rotisserie frame and fuselage attachment stubs, to enable easy removal of the rotisserie hoop from the fuselage. We intend to put the rotisserie hoop onto its roller assy on Monday. Hopefully I’ll also have the tail support ring assy…

Laurie and I participated today and last Tuesday with the Form 2 / 10 Year Survey of our club’s Puchatek VH-GKD under the auspices of Rob Moffat and Laurie Simpkins from Qld. It was my first activity with the recently gained Maintenance Authority from GFA, the ROC (replacement of components) ticket. We were involved in…

Today was “rotisserie meets fuselage day”. Laurie did a great job yet again welding the support struts onto the hoop. We added a couple of flat bar steel straps to connect the bottom of the hoop to the main wheel axle. Don’t get exited, we didn’t really connect to the actual axle, but as luck…

Put bushes into the rotisserie rollers. In particular, the brake screws were quite ineffective because as they were tightened, the rotisserie hoop deflected through the play in the rollers. This is now fixed and the brake setup works ok. Also fitted ball bearings into the bottom rollers that support the hoop, as the rubber rollers…

Laurie brought the steel hoop around, as well as the rotisserie frame which he had made for his Citroen restoration project. The hoop had only been rolled, not welded. Laurie did a great job cutting the hoop to size and then, after alignment, welding the ends together. He also welded the roller trunnions to the…