One day, when everything was going too well, I did not do
any mistakes yet and I had a new toy to play with; a rotary
polisher. I tried to polish the aluminum skin to see whether I'd get
the plane painted or just polished. I made my opinion on two things:
. Polishing will be a LOT of work and won't look as nice as if I get
the airplane painted.
. When you use a polisher around free hanging cables, chances are that
the polisher will grab one of these cables and make significant damage to
the aircraft skin.
That's what happened. The polisher grabbed the rudder cable and
the shackle made a few good dents on the fuselage skin. (ouch!). I
debated whether I would fill this with putty, repair according with
AC43-13 (a patch) or what else. I elected to make an inspection
plate which would allow me to maintain the ELT antenna if need be.
So, here it is:
And, one day, after that inspection plate was installed and the battery
tray was installed, I closed the rear fuselage! (Jan 2004)
