11/24/2014 Chapter 14 update

The storage room is working pretty good at keeping the temperature more stable and within working temps of the epoxy.    Looks like this is going to be my winter time working space unless I partition the shop area off.   The shop and hangar had gotten down to about 57 when it was freezing/blowing outside.   Comfortable enough to work in but colder than the recommended temp for epoxy curing.

I worked until about 3 AM Sunday morning and encountered a few moments of frustration.  CS5 & 8 are on, CS 6 & 7 and center bulkhead are cut.  Since I was waiting for the macro to cure holding CS5 & 8 on, I did the first parts of Step 4.    I ran out of peel ply tape so made due by cutting some strips off wide rolls.  When doing a BID layup on one of the CS-4 boards, I miss handled the lay up.   When I tried to lift it off, it pulled the super sticky micro up in spots.   I quickly mixed up some more micro, fixed the spots missing micro and put a new cloth down.   The glass had a tendency to bubble where the micro had been patched.   Stippling and heating with a gun helped take care of that.  Temp in the room was right at 75 or warmer and I was using fast hardener so that added to the challenge.


A few things need to be improved on the cutting station.   It is on wheels and the height matches the work benches, but when the work benches are covered with a spar or wings,  that space isn't available for cutting.  The small cutting surface works fine for cutting pieces for small lay ups, but the longer ones require more surface.   There's a couple of places that fiberglass can snag on that need to be taken care of too.    I don't see how people build these planes in small spaces, but they do.   Passion is a great motivator.

Today I  trimmed the CS4 pieces using the band saw after removing the peel ply. One of the end pieces needs some more attention but the rest fits good.  Later, I cleaned the epoxy pump and put the expired epoxy/hardener back into the original containers so I can use it on non-aviation projects.   The old epoxy still seems to be good other than the hardener stinks a little and seems to get waxy when exposed to air.    I'd been using a scale and pouring but when working alone and using fast hardener, the pump will be better.    It seems like I probably wasted more when pouring by hand.   It's easy enough to check the pump calibration before each session.  I'll put the slow hardener in the pump for now since there's some big layups coming up.

  The vacuum system is working nicely and kept the dust to a minimum when trimming CS4.  But needs moved, more hose added and a few more tweaks.  That can wait until one of the next curing  periods.