March 13, 2020
We’re still waiting on the replacement stiffener for the horizontal stab from Van’s, in the mean time it’s time to build a priming booth. We gathered supplies from Lowe’s, two 12 x 50′ rolls of plastic, a couple 10 x 12 sheets, a box fan, and some wide blue painter’s tape.
First, we stapled a 10 x 12′ sheet to the rafters to set the ceiling. The location of the booth was dictated by staying between the center and outer frame of the garage door. We also had to curve around one light, but it’s an LED so melting the plastic isn’t a big concern.
Next we used the 50′ roll to make the walls, cutting a door in one side and overlapping the extra. Some canvas sheets made up our flooring and 2 x 4’s weighted the bottom of the plastic walls to the floor, making a decent seal. We also went around the ceiling with duct tape to ensure a good seal between the “ceiling” and the “walls”.
The box fan we taped into one of the walls, to draw air into the booth from the man-door of the garage. With the car-door of the garage partially open and the fan on, the booth inflated and then forced air out through a gap we’d left in the 2 x 4’s. This proved that we had positive pressure airflow through the booth!!
Another run to the store for an exhaust-air filter and the booth was ready. However, the weather was not compatible with priming.
To prime the temperature needs to be 70ºF or warmer to spray and cure well. The forecast for the foreseeable future is calling for highs of only ~60ºF. We’ve ordered a 60k BTU heater but it’ll be a couple of days before it arrives. Before anybody panics – the heater won’t be on while we’re spraying primer. We’ll use the heater to increase the ambient temperature to ~80º, turn off and remove the heater, and then set up for spraying. We’re hoping the temperature will hold above 70º until the primer has a chance to set and then we can turn the heater back on to keep the temp up for a few hours of cure time.
In the mean time we’ve rolled the priming booth up into the rafters so that the garage is still accessible. We’ve still got a day of deburring the horizontal stabilizer components ahead of us.
Cheers,
-Kacy
(Total Build Time: 28 hrs)