Cob webs are bad

scard · #1 06-18-2010, 01:22 PM

It has been a while since I've done any real -8 work in the shop... A few days ago, as I shuffled out through the garage to put out the recycling, I noticed growing piles of small dead bugs and other fod in most corners that I looked. So I committed to get out there and clean the place up a little the next day. Then it occurred to me; how better to squash the summertime heat than to chill down the shop and do a little -8 project work. Novel concept I know.
So, the following day, I did just that. First step: Figure out where the heck I left off. It took about an hour of pouring through plans, instructions, and inspecting the parts still strewn across the benches. Yep, those holes have been drilled, yep, these have been deburred... I got down to a step in the instructions that was something like "prime and rivet all of the prepared parts in this assembly". Aww, surely there is something else that can be done before having to break out the primer? Nope, that would take me into another full sub assembly. Wouldn't you know it, I left off right at a definite primer prep location. Ok, so be it. I did the primer prep and setup to shoot the parts.
While standing over the tubs of soapy water and Prekote I looked up to notice that there was a big cob web glistening in the sunlight stretched across the tops of the completed gear leg towers on the forward fuselage assembly sitting on the other work bench. I acknowledged the bugs that have had free reign for a few months and got those parts primed.

FredMagare · #2 06-19-2010, 05:14 AM

Did you prime the spider too?

I have to keep cleaning bugs out from under the wing cart you passed to me but I can't seem to find the spider!

The other day I noticed the parts in my garage and reviewed my builder's log to discover that I haven't done any construction of consequence since January! Spent two hours working on wingtips yesterday. It's difficult to get re-motivated sometimes.

I'm hoping to be able to purchase my fuselage toward the end of the year....

David-aviator · #3 06-19-2010, 07:07 AM

I have declared total war on bugs in the hangar. It takes daily combat missions because they seem to have an unlimited supply of man power but slowly but surely their activity is on the decline and I am winning.

The key is keeping them out of the building. All cracks are being sealed and no night lights. Night lights attract one kind of bug and another comes along to eat them.

A while back I was cruising along minding my own business when this large (to me) spider crawled across the panel. I don't know where he came from and in a flash he was gone. I spent considerable time back on the ground trying to flush him out by no luck. Later that year after it turned cold a portion of the panel was removed for some reason and there he was, dead. Good!

But I know if you leave the battle field for a week or two, they really come back big time.....nature does not give up easily.

JUST A QUICK POST SCRIPT, I lost a friend a few years back, he and I were in the same pilot training class in the USAF and he used to show up at OSH every year. And then he did not show up any more, a spider bite did him in. Actually, the bite did not do him in, the infection that followed is what did it. All spiders get killed in my hangar. I leave them alone outside but in the hangar they die. I don't like them and never have.

flion · #4 06-19-2010, 07:23 AM

Once during my PSEL training, I noticed a web in the back of the C-152 and the egg case fuzzy with recently hatched spiderlings. During that flight, my IP pulled the power, as usual, and I began the 'emergency' (fly the plane, fly the plane, fly the plane). As I 'communicated', I jokingly said, "Cessna 1234, engine out over the mothball fleet (SF Bay Area), 20 gallons fuel and 300 souls aboard." Naturally, I had to explain that to my instructor. Let me add, this is an unfortunate time to discover that your instructor is a bigger arachnophobe than you are.