October 30, 2006

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.