glueing

The last few days have been busy ones.  I stayed up really late last night working on the vertical stab of 53T.  The progress made was getting the new longeron pieces matched to the glider scarfs as well as trimmed down so that they taper to match the stringers.  Of course I had to remember to leave a gap between the longeron and the spars of 1/8" for the plywood webs.  This was a lot of fine tuning so it was time consuming work.  But by about 1 AM I had the pieces cut to my satisfaction and was ready for bed. 

Leah also worked in the garage for a while last night, although she didn't stay up late like me.  Mostly she worked on taking the ailerons off the wing.  Getting 45 yr old cotter pins removed from castellated nuts and removing the old nuts and bolts was no easy task.  Once she got the aileron off the right wing she called it a night.

By the way she is standing next to my latest rowing shell project, one of the clubs Maas 24's.  It is a workhorse boat and has no fewer than 3 cracks in the hull and another couple possible leak points.  So I'll be doing plenty of sanding on that in the next week or so and learning some fiberglass work, which will be nice.  Earlier this year I replaced a bunch of spruce in the truss of one of the clubs Van Dusen racing singles which was a lot of fun.

Back to 53T, this morning after breakfast I epoxied the front and rear spars in place.  They didn't provide any particular challenge although I still managed to glue a few of the clamps to the glider.  Thankfully they came off without any trouble or damage.

Most of today was spent finishing up the condition inspection on the NG-1 and assembling and disassembling the NG-1.  It was nice to finally get this glider together and get it airworthy.  I bought it last summer and am looking forward to having a little more performance.  Don't worry 373Y is still my first love and I intend to chase my diamonds in the Cherokee.  The NG-1 just might come in handy for things like the KSA Wooden Wings trophy, Kowbell, and of course the SSA Barringer Trophy and Henry Combs award :)  Here is the NG-1 in the driveway. 

After we got the NG-1 back in the trailer we ran to Harry's to help with the clubs 1-23 project.  We were checking the fit of the wings before Harry starts riveting all the skins back on the bird.  Thankfully everything fit (whew!) and only minor shimming will get it fitting even better.

Once I got back home I started working on the plywood webs of the vertical stab.  Got out the handheld sander and some 50 grit paper and in no time had the glider side of things ready.

I used my piece of birch plywood since my mahogany is on backorder.  no worry, the birch is stronger anyway.  It didn't take me too long to trim up a piece of wood that was a little oversize for what I needed.  Then a little sanding, but a lot of dust, and it was time for epoxy again.  Currently everything is out in the garage curing.  Tomorrow I'll be ready to epoxy in the longerons as well as scarf in some new stringer material on the right side that i had to remove to accommodate the plywood scarf.  There is also a small plate of plywood in front of the vertical stab box beam that i need to replace.  Then it will be on to fabricating the tailwheel bracket. 

In other news now that the NG-1 is out of the garage I'll start moving 373Y in.  Need to get to work rewiring the glider, installing an audio vario, and fixing the bubbles in the leading edge.  It will be due for its condition inspection May 1 so I might try to get that done too.