Right Wing closed

Yesterday Leah and I made an attempt at epoxying the new upper piece of plywood on the right wing.  It didn't really go so well.  I was hoping that I could force the wood to shape. I was dreaming.  So today I cleaned up the epoxy mess that I had made and started over.  I needed to steam the plywood so that I could bend it to shape.  I've never done this before.  A steam box would be the ideal setup for this sort of job but I don't have one or the materials to build one.  So I bought a clothes steamer at Wal Mart and decided to give it a shot. Amazingly with my thin 1.5 mm plywood it worked pretty well.  Although I did burn my hand a little.  After boiling about a quart of water the plywood had a decent curve bent into it. Things looked like they were going to work!

I killed a little time waiting for the wood to dry out.  Then added a new layer of wood sealant to the inside of the new wood.  Waited for that to dry.  I did unroll the rest of the carpet that I bought when I was building the wing stands.  This turned my garage floor into a nicer floor than my apartment!  Nice plush carpet!  With varnish dry I mixed up epoxy and set the wood in place.  I had a little time to actually think about it and worked out a pretty decent method for holding the wood in place and tight while the epoxy cures.

 

After I took the picture I added a few more Bungee's and a couple of 1 inch wide canoe straps.  With the new plywood securely in place I moved that wing back into the cradles and hung some blankets over it and the heater under that to keep some warm air on it.  Then Leah helped me lift the left wing onto the benches.  Moved my wing root stand onto the right wing and generally re-arranged the garage. It's looking alright.

 

 With the left wing on the bench I got a new piece of sandpaper on the sander, donned my personal protective equipment, and went crazy.  By about 6:30 when it's dark and starting to get cold I had all of the top wing skins sanded.  Tomorrow I hope to start working on the bottom and maybe do the ribs, which have to be done by hand.  After yesterday which was a bit discouraging it was great to make some progress!

Horizontal Stabilizer

The Horizontal/Elevator has been decorating my bedroom for the past few months.  With all the other control surfaces covered it is time to start on it. Elevator detached from the Horizontal quite easily.  The fabric peeled off the elevator with no problems.  The wood looks really nice underneath!  Leah got started sanding the frame while I took a closer look at the Horizontal.

 

The Horizontal Stab on my glider is covered in a formed piece of fiberglass, like on my Vertical Stab.  I found after removing the elevator that this fiberglass had started to lift off of the rear spar on the Horizontal in a few places.  Couldn't be having that so I mixed up a small batch of epoxy and got to work.  I found a great use for the piles of old Soaring magazines that I recently got, using them to help apply pressure to the new glued areas.  A couple of 2x4 bits and some 3 ring binders helped put the pressure in the right place.  I have always known this but it goes without saying that you can never have enough clamps!  

Let's see you do that with an online archive! Just kidding, I really really like the online archive of Soaring Magazine.  That's all for now!

Setting Goals

Ive got several shipments of goodies arriving today and tomorrow.  Mostly from Aircraft Spruce and Stewart Systems.  Picking up more fabric (just in case), epoxy varnish, wood filler, some inspection rings, another gallon of fabric filler, 2 gallons of daytona white paint, a quart of pontiac red for trim, and another gallon of glue just in case we need it.  I think that should pretty much set me as far as what I need to finish the job. The only thing else that I might need to order is a variety of odd AN nuts and bolts.  I need to do a good inventory first and see what I need compared to what I have.

So I've got a large term goal and that is to put everything in the trailer and take it to Marfa TX to fly on April 17.  Big goal and even I'm not sure if it's going to happen.  But in order for that to happen a bunch of things have to happen first.  Working backwards seems to work best for me when planning these things.  Of course the glider needs to get repairs finished and covered in fabric and painted.  Also, I'm pretty sure the annual condition inspection will need to be done as it expires on March 31, but that will have to wait until after the glider is covered and ready to fly.  I need to find an A&P and coordinate to make that happen.  Should be no problem.  Getting control surfaces covered will be no problem as they fit in my apartment easily and I can do the work on cold days.  I need to settle on an instrument panel layout and may delay getting the transponder good and installed until later this season.  I will need Oxygen for flying at Marfa and I ordered an Aerox 9 cubic foot bottle yesterday but I'll have to work up a mounting system.  Since I cut out the shelf in my cockpit I'll need to come up with a new solution for a seat back and also while i'm working on it need to put a couple of fabric pockets in the cockpit so I have a place to stow maps and stuff.

Any spare time I have to work on cockpit comfort items will be worth it.  I particularly want to come up with some sort of foam support for my legs, a kind of cradle.  Will be a bit of a trick though to work that around the control cables but I think it can be done.  Also I think I'm going to send in the loaner Cambridge 25 Flight Recorder to get calibrated.  Needs to be done anyway as I have high hopes for setting some state records this season. 

I need to get an antenna for the truck, and get it tuned up and ready for the trip.  Spare tire for the trailer.  Trailer still has a few more places where it needs more rivets and Harry is working on a few pieces of bent aluminum to put over the front of the trailer to seal it up.  Those will need riveted on too.  I just rememberd that I've got a little bit more work to do on the wing attachments in the trailer.

In The Sunship Games George Moffat said "You need help, and it's endless..."  Then he saws off the wingtips on his Cirrus.  I know how he feels. 

Stay tuned...it's going to be a busy month.  General outline is:

Starting now - Work like Mad
March 13th weekend - cover fuselage and wings
After March 13th but before April 17th - Paint glider and finish everything else.

I sure hope it warms up soon...

Aileron #2

Once again I had a sunday at home, and it was cold outside.  Nothing to do except cover another aileron.  I worked sluggishly through most of the day and started glueing fabric around 9:30.  It sure helped out to have done this before.  Went pretty smoothly.  I bought a cheapo full size iron from wal mart and spent some time calibrating it on saturday.  I like it a little better than the small hobby iron, mostly because it seems to hold its temperature better during shrinking.  I did still use the hobby iron for an initial shrink and the big iron for the final 300ish degree shrink.  So now both ailerons and the rudder are covered.  I think I'll start working on the horizontal and elevator this week.  Forecast is for 40ish weather by the weekend so hopefully I'll have time to get some more work done on the wings.

New Skin

Leah and I did some more sanding on the right wing today.  Neal was kind enough to give me some scrap 1.5 mm plywood to use for the new skin.  After supper I started cutting out the new plywood.  Did some more cleaning up on the wing and got the skins fitted.  We got the lower skin in place and the epoxy is curing at this moment.  Hopefully it looks good in the morning and it stays warm enough to put the top skin on soon!

Update!

Here is a picture of the new skin in place.  It looks pretty nice to me, still needs some sanding and touch up around the edges but it'll do.

Wing Work

Warm weather today.  When I got down to the garage at 6 PM it was 48 F!  I finished up cleaning up the area around the bad wood on the lower leading edge.  It is looking pretty nice and should be ready for new plywood soon.  With the bottom of the wing open i had a good view of the inside of the top wing skin and it didn't really look that good.  really dark, some areas more black.  Plus I could see epoxy on the wood.  On the inside!  Well my mystery was solved.  I had found the area that previously had epoxy injected into the wood.  This is the spot that Dave Schuur found was soft when he was working on the glider 5 or 6 years ago.  So i decided I better remove the top skin at the leading edge too.  I made pretty quick work of it with the chisel and knife and now I have 2 pieces of plywood to replace.

After that I sanded the lower leading edge.  Then Adam called so I didn't get much more work done, but it was getting cold by then anyway.  Back to the garage tomorrow, supposed to be warm again.  I took this picture of the inside of the wing, just thought it was pretty.  This is looking at the inside of the top wing skin.

An Aileron a day

Yesterday brought cold weather and Leah and I decided to spend our Valentine's Day at home watching the Daytona 500 and the Olympics.  Sometime early in the afternoon we started taking fabric off the ailerons.  At some point I thought "I wonder if I could get this right aileron recovered today?"  So I decided to try.  The fabric came off pretty easy, Leah was a willing helper but not too interested in getting her picture taken.

Then it was time to sand.  We both grabbed some sandpaper and got to work.  It was pretty quick work to get the surface smoothed out.  Then I spent a little time with the wire brush cleaning up the hinges and control horns in preparation for a shot of Rustoleum Primer.  Next was a fair amount of time with paper and tape getting the aileron covered up so I could prime the metal parts.  Of course I had to take some precautions to avoid spray painting the rest of my apartment.  It all worked out fine.  Then I used the Stewart Systems cleaner to clean up the dust and junk off the wood, followed by a couple coats of the wood sealant.  It was looking nice at this point and the next step was fabric!

 

Got all my supplies together and cut out a piece of fabric that would wrap around the aileron.  Did a fair amount of himming and hawing while I figured out how I wanted this to work, and it ended up working out well.  Everything shrunk down well and I've got a decent looking aileron as a result, I think.  I didn't even have to stay up all night to finish it.

 

 

I do still need to burn some drain holes into the aileron with my soldering iron.  Once that is finished it should be ready for finish, whenever I get around to that.  

No I did not finish the second aileron today.  It is supposed to warm up in the next few days so hopefully I'll be back in the garage working on the wings.