German
Cleaning and inventory parts
The kit was almost 3 decades in storage. You can imagine the amount of dust it collected over time. Also there are parts missing. So the first task was to clean, identify, inventory and packing the parts (in a way that I will find them when needed).
The best picture upfront:
This demonstrates the very low weight of the J-5 fuselage shell. Of cause right now there is nothing in it: No bulkhead, cross force tube, no engine mount... Once finished it will weight almost 100 kg (~220 lb). I belief by then trying to lift it my smile would look different ;-)
The dust at the surface was surprisingly sticky. Quite some detergent and lots of hand work was needed to get rid of it. Later in the building process the whole airplane needs to be sanded and painted (with PU).
There is nothing build into the root rib. This means that also the wood which will house the metal fittings for the cross force tubes are bare and would be exposed to water. Wide tape protected it during the cleaning process (how would aviation do without tape ;-)
The small parts I had to clean, identify and inventory. What a shame that the beautiful engine cowling can't be used since I will build in a different engine.
The dust which once covered the pieces ended well spread in the whole bath room. It took a couple of days until I was forgiven....
The fuselage is very lightweight. For cleaning I flipped it upside down.
At the end of the process I used lots of water to flush away the detergent in order to ensure a clean and detergent free surface.
The inner surface was less covered by dust, but this was compensated by the fact that it was more difficult to reach it. I spend quite some time inside the fuselage shell. By the time I came out I was all over wet.
The V-tail is unusual to handle. I belief that I need to build a special holder in order to comfortably work on it.
The polish canopy has lots of optical imperfections from the manufacturing process. It will require many hours to correct this by sanding and polishing.
Its unbelievable
how many little parts are build into an airplane. In the foreground you can see
the bolts where the fuselage hangs on the wings. At the end of the work bench
you see the wing wheels.
There are lots of plans to study.
Ready for the first inspection 
All parts are clean now. No worries anymore to get dirty by entering the workshop with good cloths. I will build a wall mount for the wings and hanging them onto the right wall. This prepared the inspector can come to see the parts, the workshop and me for the project registration.
Impressum, Disclaimer & Datenschutz
Lightweight
wings
bath tub cleaning
almost done
cleaning the inside
raw canopy
Plans
J-5 Home