The Beginnings

There she sat in all of her glory. Stripped down with no wings or engine with all of the paint removed, waiting for the next job to be completed. That's our job at the Airport, to rebuild this aircraft, a 1960 2 seat Cessna. We have to check all the parts on the aircraft to make sure they function properly, and remove corrosion from any parts of the metal. This is important as the corrosion can eat through the metal and cause failures. We then have to put all the parts back together and then onto the aircraft, finishing with a paint job. 

So far all of the corrosion has been removed from the outside of the plane along with the inside shell of the body. Currently the wings have been disassembled and scrubbed free of corrosion and waiting for a coat of anti-corrosion paint. Also we have taken many rivets out so that we have access to the inside of the different components. Taking out rivets is a difficult task that involves drilling off the head of the rivet and then pushing the rest of the rivet out of the other side of the hole.

In the next few weeks our main task will be to scrub out corrosion and prepare the metal to be painted. To prepare the metal for painting we have to use green 'scratchies' to rough up the metal so that the paint can stick to it. After that, we have to put rivets back in and rebuild the metal after it has been painted.