Bottom spar cap and skin

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Chapter 25

Bottom spar and Bottom skin

There's plenty of cloth to cut in this chapter so to make cutting the cloth easy, I sanded my work table to the equivalent of a baby's, well, you get the picture. This way, I can just pull on the cloth, and it slides across the table without any snags.

My work table is back up against a wall, and making a new custom table will be easier than bringing the big table out. I made it from 1X2s. Only .99 cents each! After the triangulation, I was amazed at how rigid it got. After bondoing, I would shake it and it would not budge. Here you can see the beginning of the 1X2 frames. They are temporarily tacked to the wing jigs, to result in the correct spacing.

After the 1Xs were in place, I nailed some 1X4s on top and then nailed some blocks to them. Then, I ran a string lengthwise, and used post it notes to shim up the blocks perfectly level. Then taped the post its down.

Here is the wing in place. I used lumber to the wing jigs very carefully, to triangulate them so when we picked the wing up to transfer it, there would be not be a total disaster, since only a few dabs of 5 min epoxy hold the jigs to the foam. This was a nervous moment for me. BUT, when we lifted the whole assembly, there was not one sound! Very cool. Now I have a nice flat and true surface to build my wing.

This is just after lifting the wing and jigs assembly up onto my temporary table. None of my tables are ever level at all. I just run a string from one end block to the other, and then install varying thickness spacers in between the end blocks to just kiss the string. I use whatever is laying around for the spacers (to get close) and then for the remaining space, use whatever amount of post it notes I need. The wing assembly wasn't that heavy. My dad and I did it with no help. It was nerve racking though. The thought of something moving was not good as it would be extremely difficult to fix.

APRIL 5,2004

The bottom spar was quick and easy. In fact, I have nothing to even say about it.

A dam isn't needed on the other side of the alum plate. Epoxy didn't drip down that area or anything.

After almost 8 hours of glassing, here she be. All peel plied and everything. It feels so good to finish one of these long layups. A cool Bud Light is usually in order. ---I didn't need any "brads" for my aileron peel ply or my trailing edge peel ply. They stay put just fine on the micro. The small 2x4 piece of uni added in the notch is something Nat added because, of the long EZs that have taxied into a hangar and broke their wings, that area is where they broke first. I consider myself a pretty good fiberglasser when it comes to the difficult layups, however, I did find it very challenging to get the fibers straight on the wing layups. If there is a better way to do it, I haven't found it yet. I'd better before the top skin though, because that part was NOT fun. The 12" wide uni below the 2x4 piece is also for added strength. Cut it to stop before the aileron a couple inches. And just place it per the drawing in the plans. (scale) I would pump epoxy at 8 pumps per cup. That's the most I have used at a time yet.

I peel plied the whole surface. I went to wal-mart and they didn't have any peel ply. I hear some wal-marts do have it though. So I went to my local fabric store, and they had some stuff called "sport nylon". She said they sometimes refer to it as rip-stop also. Anyway, I bought about 7 yards of it. It was folded in half, so when I used it, I would cut the fold line off, which gave me two very flat pieces for that length of cut. Perfectly flat peel ply is important or the epoxy will bunch up in that area. Above the peel ply has been removed. I used the regular 2" peel ply from spruce along the LE, and I noticed when I removed it, it tore off much easier than the big pieces. Then, when I ran my finger across the two different areas, I noticed the peel ply from spruce wasn't NEAR as rough. I didn't peel ply my fuse sides but now I wish I had. I didn't know about the big pieces you can get. Again, by having these nice big, perfectly flat pieces of peel ply, after I removed them, my wing surface was absolutely perfect.

Email -- Jay Hegemann