NetHeads, A couple of people have commented about the quality of workmanship on my airplane. All I can say is that they were all drinking at the time they saw it! The reason I say this is to lower expectations at the 2005 Gathering. I don't want anybody looking at my wings and saying "gee, I thought these were perfect". They're not, and I'm not about to spend the time to make them that way. It's easy to look at somebody's wings and think "I can't believe he painted those with that surface like that", but all I can say is "until you've been there, it looks easy enough".
I've spent the day sanding off several layers of Smooth Prime from the last of my two wings, and managed to prime the corresponding aileron and flap. I discovered some neat (although polyester) stuff called Ultimate Glaze by Dynatron. It's a two part "finishing and blending putty" that makes quick work of the pinholes that Smooth Prime misses. The great thing about it is that it's ready to sand in 15 minutes; the bad thing is that you've got maybe two minutes to apply it after it's mixed! If you follow the directions and squeeze out a 3" ribbon of catalyst to a 3" diameter circle of the stuff, it'll cure in 10 seconds! Still, it is very easy to smooth onto the surface and to sand (rivaling Aeropoxy Light) and you can't beat the cure time. Since it's polyester, you need to sand most of it off (because polyester's famous for shrinkage), but that's what you do with pinholes anyway, right? I expect to prime the rest of the wing tomorrow, and call the bodywork "close enough for KR work". I reinstalled the canopy today for the first time in several years, and it's starting to look a lot like an airplane. I will also shoot the inside of the canopy frame soon and remove the Spraylat covering. After I figure out canopy latches, it'll be time to taxi around the neighborhood. Anybody with a neat canopy latch system is welcome to show it to me at the Gathering, or send photos. There's a token update photo (5 minutes old) at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/04091808m.jpg . The thing I love about this canopy is that I can take both it AND the forward deck off by pulling two piano hinge pins and unscrewing the two gas strut bolts. In two minutes I can take the forward upper half of the plane off, and in another minute I can have the rear deck off. Be prepared to see the guts of a KR for all the world to see at the 2005 Gathering! Well, my 15 minutes is up, so it's back to wing sanding for me. How's that song go again? I guess Jim Faughn will remind us in a few days... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama N56ML "at" hiwaay.net see KR2S project at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
