And the winner is...

It's AZKO all the way! Granted the prep time is longer and the chemicals are noxious, but man I'm getting a much better finish with AZKO than I am with the self etching primer. Here are two siffeners from the practice project. The dark gray one in front was primed using the self etching primer and the gold one in back was primed with AZKO. Both pieces were alumiprepped and alodized.

Please excuse the blurry photo, but here you can see the self etchingprimer scratches off easily with a fingernail:

This is one of the reinforcement places. These were the last parts I primed. This is pretty close to what the finish should look like. Very light coat, just enough to make the part that distinctive gold color. I was holding the part by the corners which is why they are not covered well. I still have to put together a chickenwire spray and drying rack.

I'm sure there are as many opinions on the topic as there are builders - and then some. For me, it's the three step Alumiprep, Alodine, AZKO. Sure it may slow down the process a bit, but I can't argue with the finished result. I'll still keep some self etching primer around for the little one-off jobs.

I'm going to try and alter the build process a bit in an attempt to reduce the number of batches I need to prime. I would love to complete the tail kit with only one or two days of priming. That means getting all the subassemblies fitted, dimpled, and deburred before I drive any rivets so that I can prime all of the parts in bigger batches. I'm not positive on the feasibility of this approach, but I'm going to give it a try.