Wrap Up Work 5
10/28/2006 4 hours
Well, I did get to the hangar one more time in the week, but not really long enough to count for anything, so I'll call it a loss. I was there for two hours, but basically made zero headway.
Today, the windshield had to be put on the plane so it could be ready for fibreglass. That basically meant putting all the screws in. The other day, I'd snapped a screw in one of the holes I'd drilled and tapped out, so I had to get that sorted first. While I was doing that, I even snapped a drill bit. What the hell is wrong with me?! I wasn't sure if the stainless screws going into the chromoly steel was the problem. Sometimes threads can gall up when two different materials are used. I decided to run the tap through all the holes once more to make sure they were good.
When assembling this time, I used a bit of Boeshield to help lube the threads, and also protect them from corrosion. This worked out OK, as I never had any more trouble with it.
I worked my way from the middle to the sides and had to rearrange and make different shims as I went. Also, this meant opening and closing the canopy a whole bunch of times. Eventually though, I got the screws and shims all done. Here's how it's looking... It's a bit dusty, but you can see how well it matches the canopy.
Next was the little clips that hold the bottom edge down to the fuselage. These were pretty easy to do. I put about 8 down.
Now that's all done, here's what it's looking like!
10/29/2006 7 hours
This morning I got to the hangar earlier, because of the clocks going back an hour! I was expecting Keith to come by with his vast Lancair experience to help me out with glassing this thing up, so I spent some time prepping for when he arrived. I ran into Larry today too, and he asked me if I was available some time today to help him wire an Autopilot coupler into his plane, so I told him to let me get some lay ups done and I'd come over. I needed some long reach clamps so I ran out to Home Depot to see what they had, and grab some food.
Clayton showed up too, so we decided to get cracking and put some flox mixture in before Keith arrived. Clayton once had an incident where he got some loose flox in his eye. These days he's a little more cautious!
We went ahead and put a layer of glass over the flox peanut butter and then went over to help out Larry. Keith should be here anytime too, so it should all work out perfect.
Here's me doing some layup.
Here you can see where we have fibreglass over the flox peanut butter on one half and just the peanut butter on the other.
Well, the plan didn't really work out. Keith came by while we were buried behind Larry's instrument panel, so he left a note and we ended up missing him. Doh. We were over at Larry's for about three hours, wiring in the coupler. We tested it, and to all our amazements, it worked!
So, we got back to the hangar and found the note from Keith. Sorry Keith, I probably should have called you. Well, once we were done with Larry, we came back to the WARM hangar (Larry's hangar was freezing!) and carried on with the lay ups. The previous layers had set up pretty nicely too. Excellent. Here's Clayton laying some glass.
Careful now!
Here it is, pretty much done. Of course we still have the rear bits to do where the clamps are, but that shouldn't be too bad either. The fun starts when we break out the sandpaper. I hate sanding. Ugh.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of the clamps. I thought they looked so out of proportion with the plane that it was funny. I had to laugh. Could I have found any bigger ones? This is America you know!
10/30/2006 5 hours
Today, I was a bit cheeky and took a half day off work to work on the plane. I went to West Marine and picked up some black pigment for the rest of the fibreglass. Unfortunately, they only had one tube, and I hate being in the predicament of not having enough of something.
Keith came by today and introduced me to Vettepanel. It's quite runny to work with, but it smooths out pretty nice and sets up really quicky! We put some pigment in to darken it a little, and we backed up the roll bar gap with some silicon tubing. Keith then went to work filling it in. Keith's the "Composite Meister" as he's built two Lancair IV P's. He works so fast, his hands are a blur! I couldn't believe how quickly the Vettepanel cured! It was set in minutes, and was ready to sand in no time.
While Keith was doing that I had removed the clamps and laid up the rest of the flox and fibreglass. It came out pretty nice too, and the windshield didn't budge a bit when I removed the clamps.
The complete periphery of the roll bar is now filled. Time to mask off and sand a bit.
I tried the Vettepanel on the outside of the windshield where we laid up glass yesterday. This is pretty nice to work with. It's a bit harder than Bondo too once cured.
Keith sanded the filler in the roll bar with 40 grit. It's coming out nice, and it didn't take very long either.
A close up. Lookin' good!
By the end of the evening, the flox and layups I'd done earlier were fairly hard, so I splurged and smoothed some Vettepanel on them. Tomorrow will be a sanding evening. I'm really looking forward to that!
A distant shot.
T'other side. I'd say that if push came to shove, this windshield is flight ready! I need to pretty up a bit more really though. Get it all sanded properly before removing all the tape.
While windshield things were curing, I mixed some peanut butter flox and reinforced the hinges on the cowling. I just want to make sure that the rivets get some help here. The hinges were already epoxied as well as riveted, but the more help they get the better really.
I'd started trimming the oil door too. Tomorrow I'll do some more of that if I get bored with sanding.
10/31/2006 3.5 hours
I broke out early again today, although not as early as yesterday. I got to that hangar at about 3pm. Keith was around, so he came by and we attacked the front windshield with the sanding machines. Keith has a nice flat sander, and a round orbital one. Both air powered. They worked a treat. Once we'd got it sanded, we removed the lower tape mask and moved the tape line forward a little. Then we prepped the bare aluminium with the orbital sander and 40 grit. Once that was done, Keith had to go, so I laid up some E-Glass over the edge of the existing fillet and on to the aluminium. I applied some peel ply, and left it to set up overnight. Tomorrow, I'll get to the hangar again, and peel it off and we'll start filling and sanding again.
I didn't have my Flash card with me this time, so no pics sorry!
11/1/2006 1 hour
I couldn't get out of work today, which was a shame. As a result, I didn't really get to do much at the hangar. I peeled off the peel ply, and it turned out really well. I was pleasantly surprised. Here is what we're looking like now. We have a little more filling and sanding to do, but not really too much now. I can see an end to it!
A close up of the surface after the peel ply was removed. You can see the texture where the light is catching it right. This means no sanding between applying additional layers or filler. It also helps to wick out any excess resin, making the whole lot stronger.
I finally got around to disconnecting the throttle cable and putting some firesleeve over it. It's pretty close to the exhaust through here, so it needs all the help it can get.
Filling and sanding. Filling and sanding. I'm really getting bored of filling and sanding! On the bright side though, it's starting to look nearly finished. Well until the primer is sprayed on anyway!
I can't remember which iteration the shot below is. There have been so many. I broke down and removed the canopy rails so I could fill the gap between the roll over bar and the windshield in the lower areas a little better. It's now infinitely easier to work on and sand. I don't know why we didn't do that earlier.
Are you bored with sanding yet? How about filling?
Just in case you're not... Here's another shot of some more filling and sanding.
In between filling and sanding I did some more filing and sanding on the cowling. Well, technically not filler, but fibreglass, and almost as bad. I cut some foam pieces to close out the ends of the intake ramps. This will stop the air swirling around and going where it's not supposed to be going. I glassed all these in nice and tidy and also bridged the gap on the outer sides. I forgot to take a picture of the fibreglassing because I got otherwise distracted by visitors!
I decided it was time to make these two halves fit together properly. I wrapped the lower cowling flange with electrical tape and put some PVA release agent on there. Once that was dry, I roughed up the inside of the top half and mixed up some flox peanut butter. I then pasted the flox into the upper cowling, and then put them both together so that they are a perfect form fit.
Here they are together. I may end up having to use dynamite or something to get the clecoes out. When this went together, the flox peanut butter oozed out nicely. I smoothed it off and left it to set up. Tomorrow I'll pull them apart and put the screws in with nutplates.
Here's a close up of one of the joints. While I hate this fibreglassing stuff, it's really pretty cool what you can do with it.
Haha! Just when you thought you'd done filling and sanding!
