Friday, March 23, 2012

Prepping the Skirt

I got home early on Friday and immediately went to work at the canopy. I had lots of masking to do! At first I put the two missing panels in, as to stabilize the whole instrument deck area. I don't think it was necessary but I wanted to make sure that the fiberglass would follow the line exactly and not create a gap or some interference when I put the instrument panels in later.


However, I forgot to take a photo before I covered everything up with plastic to avoid messing up the interior with drops of epoxy.
Then I masked everything on the outside. Canopy decks, side skins, top skin and also the areas behind the front of the canopy frame. I don't like the idea of using paper for masking when it comes to epoxy as that stuff easily penetrates paper and loves sticking to whatever is underneath, That's why I used thin plastic trash bags.



During that whole endeavor I was cautiously eyed by a professional pilot who happened to have a nest in der corner under the patio where he's raising the next generation of aviators. I hope he didn't see anything incorrect I was doing.


I fitted the foam blocks on the canopy arms and just like Dave, I found the first step pretty easy to do with the bandsaw.


And, just like Dave, I found the aft part of the block to need some adjustment for fitting in.


It's quite easy to mark the two spots on the bottom and on the top of the foam blocks and connecting them with a line does the job. The bandsaw took care of the rest.


Now it fit and quite nicely so. I later found that I might have a bit too little material in the front part and so I might just epoxy a thin strip of foam on there. It's not structural, so that wouldn't be a problem.


I will try to get everything ready for the layup in the morning when I epoxy the block on. Shaping them shouldn't take too long and that's also true for scuffing up the aluminum and plexiglass. I'll try to get it done on Saturday as Sunday has some windy weather forecast which might just be annoying when dealing with thin sheets of glass cloth.

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