Fuselage IV
4/8/2005 3 Hours
Tonight, I spent a bunch of time fixing up the plug for the centre console and also the instrument panel. I basically cleaned it all up, filled any voids that appeared, and then painted it. This time, I didn't use grey primer! I used a shellac based primer that doesn't come off with wax. Hopefully, tomorrow or Sunday, I'll be able to start laying up the mould.
So, here it is again in white, on the kitchen floor drying. I put it there overnight coz the floor is heated so it'll help the thing dry so I can sand it in the morning.
4/9/2005 4 Hours
Today was the day where I was going to do this thing properly. I got to the hangar this afternoon later than I'd have liked, but I still made significant progress towards getting something done with this thing. I waxed the plug 4 times, and buffed it. It felt nice and slippery. I cut all the pieces of cloth and chopped strand mat that I'd need, then I mixed up some micro balloons in resin. Today, I decided to be clever and used the faster hardener. Turned out to help a lot. Reason one was that it made me work quicker, and reason two was I could lay up more layers in the same day, instead of waiting forever for the slow stuff to go off, this stuff was getting sticky in no time.
Once I'd put the micro in all the sharp corners, I laid up of the some fine e-glass over the top of it. I managed to cover nearly everything with two layers of this stuff, then I started using the fat mat as I call it. I cut the fat mat to be a bit smaller than all the sides, and splodged on tons of resin. The fat mat really soaks it up! The hardest one to do was the side, since it was such a large area, I had to mix up a lot of resin, and get the roller out to roll the resin into the mat. This was quicker and effective.
After the fat mat was down, I reinforced some of the corners a bit with some tape. I managed to do almost the whole rear half of the mould, bar one big side. Reason is, I need to lie the plug down to get the resin on nice, so I opted to do one big side today, and the other tomorrow.
So, here are some pics... All waxed up ready to go... There's my old cardboard mock up in the background! You can see the fat mat too.
Next up was cutting the cloth and mat to the shapes I needed. This mat is blinkin' 'orrible!
Here is what I basically did today. Tomorrow, I'll do the other large side. This is working out great! So, I'm really happy so far with the way this is turning out now. I was at an all time low after the last glassing session, but pulling it off prematurely gave me an insight into what it might look like, and new found confidence.
A rear three quarter...
A front three quarter....
4/10/2005 6 Hours
Today, I laid up the other big side of the mould, and reinforced all the corners. I added an extra layer of fat mat all over too, except for the big side I did yesterday, coz the other side needed to dry! All in all, the thing doesn't look that much different now than it did yesterday, although progress is still good. Tomorrow night, on the way home from footy, I might stop by and lay up the final big side. Then I'll be moving on to finish up the fron portion of the mould.
I was at the hangar for a while, and Cam came by and we flew over to Mike's in Cam's RV-9A. It was great! It was my first flight in a side by side RV, and I liked it a lot. At Mike's I babysat while they flew Cameron's radio control plane. Cameron is a new RC pilot, Mike is a seasoned vet. After I help Cam break in the engine, Mike flew the take off and got it high enough for Cameron to fly. Then Mike took over and made the landing.... Well, at least three of them... All on the same approach. Now I know how he maintains his currency so efficiently!
When we got back to YIP, I carried on with the fibreglassing. This sure is messy! There are strands of the stuff everywhere. Everywhere now has at least two layers of fat mat, except the back side in this photo.
4/11/2005-4/12/2005 2 Hours
Last night after football (soccer), I stopped by the hangar to lay up the final piece of fat mat to the large area of the mould. It didn't take long. These areas use a heck of a lot of resin, especially with the fat mat! It really soaks it up!
Tonight, I checked up on the mould and all's great! So, the rear part is now finished. Finally. Tonight, I trimmed up the front edge and taped it up and waxed it. Then I laid up the first layer on both sides of the front portion. I made the front overlap the rear slightly so I can cleco the two halves together. I also went to pick up this thing by the front face tonight and ripped it right off! Ooops! Well, I fixed that problem before laying up the side bits! I thought it was going to stop me in my tracks, but electrical tape came to the rescue.
Tomorrow, I'l stop by and maybe do a bit more glassing, but I need to take my Andair fuel valve with me to Sun N Fun for Andair Andy to look at. Seems my switch is off 45 degrees to the valve and no one knows why. Hopefully, actually seeing the offending item will help. That means the evening will be spent taking the fuel valve off the fuel pump assembly and the rest of the night will be spent packing.
Oh yeah, tonight I came to use my roller for glassing, and it was tuck to the worktable! Last night I cleaned it off with acetone and placed it on the worktable to dry off. Well, I guess there was some resin inside it or something, because it all seeped out and stuck the thing down pretty darn good. It's still there now. I might leave it there as a momento! I think a chisel might get it off! Doh!
I also did about a half hour of wet sanding of the panel tonight before rivetting on the glovebox. I haven't finished sanding yet, so not much to report on that yet.
4/18/2005-4/20/2005 3 Hours
Over the last couple of days I've stopped off at the hangar to wrap up the centre console mould. First I finished up the front half fibreglassing, then tonight the moment of truth arrived. It was time to remove the mould from the plug. First, I pulled off the front half. It came off pretty easily. Next was the rear half. This was a little tougher to remove, but putting the plug on the floor on it's front end and holding it with my foot, then rotating the mould off the plug, it came off really well!
Incredibly, the mould surface looks great! There are a few small bubbles, but nothing major to worry about. Now all I need to know is whether I need to paint it or not before laying up the actual parts. Somewhere, I think there's a fibreglass tutorial video that someone has here, maybe Mike. Might be worth a look.
Here is the mould still on the plug, all fully laid up and cured.
Here's the front half removed. So far so good! The white areaa are where a bit of paint came off the plug. Mebbe not enough wax there?!
And the rear half... Here the shot show's the inside surface of the mould so you can see how it turned out. You can clearly see where I laid down the micro balloon mix to fill in the corners. There's still a bit of paint that came off the plug in some of the corners, but I took that off after I took these pictures. I'm very happy with the way this is turning out after such a poor start to this part of the project.
From the front...
From the rear...
So, my next task will be to clean this up and maybe paint it before laying up the actual console. After a lousy start to the day due to smashing my RX-8 up (see the scooby page for pics), things started to go right again.
4/24/2005
On a more positive note (see Fuselage 4 for the negativity), I trimmed up the centre console mould and it's looking good. I also connected the two halves today and clecoed them together. I'll tape over the seam for the lay up of the part. It's starting to come together!
Here it is cleco'd together. Sweet eh?!
Here is a distant shot. It actually looks like a part doesn't it?!
And a shot of the seam between the two halve from the inside. They match pretty well, but a layer of tape will work a treat here.
5/1/2005
I also spent a couple of minutes filling up any voids on the centre console mould today. There wasn't very many, and I mixed up way too much micro for the task. Anyway, it's about ready to go now, so I'll start laying up the part soon.
After I'd done painting the panel, I started on the centre console again. First task was to wax it WELL. So, a couple of coats and a buff between each, and then to be extra sure, I got some PVA mould release and wiped the mould down with that. Now this thing should fall out of the mould when the time comes!
Next was to run some micro down the channels that will form the top edges of the part as it runs between the seats. I mixed some up and filled it all in. I tried to make the micro as thick as I dare to try to stop it running. It still dripped a little, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting. It's tough to see in the picture as the micro I laid in there is the exact same colour as the mould! Oh well, take my word for it. It's in there! You may also notice the odd cleco positioning. One side seems to hold together by itself, so I figured the less clecos to glue up the better. I taped up the seams to stop resin falling in the gap.
While this was drying, I decided to paint the tailwheel spring and wheel assembly. They were quite rusty, so I got the sand blaster out and blasted the parts clean. The sandblaster works great, and if you use baking soda, is environmentally friendly to boot, so the airport manager can't grumble. I used sand today though, coz baking soda is a bit milder an abrasive.
Here are the parts primed.
And final coat. These parts may ultimately change colour when I finally figure out what colour to paint the plane. This paint will help preserve the tailwheel for a while.
You can see my little sand blasting kit in the background. $40 from Harbor Freight. Not a bad investment.
So, now the first load of epoxy has gone off a bit, I did some lay ups. Basically, I did all the corners with a couple of layers of fine glass, and the top faces with a layer. I'm still waiting for some S-Glass and some carbon fibre to show up for the structural part. The E-Glass makes a nice first layer as it doesn't show through, and it forms easily to the contours of the part. Here's the part with some lay ups in there, not that you can see it! See the roller trophy bonded to the worktable?!!
