Cabin Touch-up

I've got the control cables out of the fuselage and started cleaning and inspecting them. One rudder cable has broken strands and will have to be replaced, good-bye $70. Mostly they're just caked with old dry grease and dirt. I'm cleaning them and re-oiling them with Corrosion-X since they were originally oiled to prevent corrosion. The turnbuckle barrels clean up nicely in carburetor cleaner. The threads have accumulated a lot of dry oily crud. They should not be oiled but they need to be clean to adjust them easily, much better. The trick of using a piece of soft flannel cloth to find broken strands was not needed on the one rudder cable, it was obvious to look at.

All the little guards to keep the cables on the pulleys were originally plated. Not much of the plating was left. I cleaned them up, epoxy primed, and painted them. I used a silver paint to look more like plating but once the interior is installed no one will ever see them. Hopefully the paint will last better than the plating. I've also learned that zinc-chromate is a nice primer but needs to be covered with some kind of paint to seal it. All the steel parts with just light coats of zinc-chromate are rusty. Even zinc-chromate will work if you layer up enough coats to seal out moisture. I think it's easier to just paint them with a good enamel over the primer and get on with it.

There were several places in the fuselage cabin area where some extra cleaning and re-priming was needed. Those are done. I think I'm ready to start putting the controls back in.