Caravelle Sanding Closing to the End

Suomeksi

During the past week we have been climbing on the top of the fuselage in Pansio. The aim is to sand the last area on top of the fuselage which we have not been able to reach from the ladders. We also cleaned the bolt and rivet holes in the stabilizer.

We rented industrial ladders which allow us to step easily on the fuselage. However, working safety issues required some thinking. How could we step on the fuselage and safely sand and do other repairs as needed? The issue was solved by using the overhead crane’s hook as a fixing point for the personal safety harness. The harness would safely prevent the possible falling.

The vertical stabilizer’s leading edge will be polished and in the autumn we installed protective tape on it for the future painting work. However, the painting wasn’t done due to the cold weather. The tape was left on the stabilizer to wait better times but now it had to be removed due to the changes in the work process. This turned out to be a burdensome job. In addition to hard work it required both mechanical scraping and use of chemical solvents to be removed.

Many thanks to Martti Peräaho, who did the main part of the climbing and grinding work on top of the fuselage while others helped on the ladders as needed.

This week we also started polishing smaller parts. When the weather warms up, hopefully after Easter, we can focus on polishing work.

We also intend to organise a polishing workshop on a couple of days where volunteers from outside the Turku area can join us in the polishing work. At the same time they can get acquainted with the project and contribute in realizing the project.

Photos by Jouko Tarponen.

Translation by Ismo Matinlauri and Erja Reinikainen.