October 2008The manual says to put some wet flox along the joint between the skin and the spar, but I would recommend that you put some flox along every joint to avoid bubbles in the corners. A disposable icing bag is the best tool to get the flox into place. Don't forget to peel-ply the edges of each lay up so that you don't catch your fingers on them later.
Next came the fitting of the plates to support the flap hinge arms. I decide to alodine the plates rather than use a professional plating service. I have spoken to one or two people on this subject and if I had bought the entire kit in one lot, it would be worth getting all the alloy parts done professionally. However, I bought the kit in three stages and the number of parts in each stage makes it uneconomical to get them plated professionally given that there was a minimum charge for each batch. So I bought some Alocrom 1200 from Sil-mid and did it myself.
The first thing to do is to give the parts a thorough clean in Flash or similar with an abrasive pad to get rid of any obvious surface contamination. Then you bathe the part in some Deoxydine which cleans it even more thoroughly. Then rinse the part in water - I used the water from the dehumidifier as that was free from contaminents. Dry the part and dip it in the Alocrom for a minute or two. Rinse again and then air-dry. Your parts should then be a pretty, gold colour and protected against corrosion. I am told that this treatment provides an excellent surface for both bonding and painting. Remember that the chemicals involved are pretty nasty and you should wear full protection whilst using them.
The rest of reinforcement was straight forward and followed the manual precisely.
One last warning - when fitting the outer W18 plates, you are asked to make up one of the flap support arms and clamp it to the plates to get the correct spacing. Make sure that the arm is protected from dribbles of epoxy with masking tape or similar - mine wasn't and needed a bit of work to get the epoxy off prior to plating..