Second FAP Panel Glassed Both Sides

Same job as yesterday, just the next FAP Panel aft. There are two FAP panels left. The first two form the cockpit and baggage area (both now finished) and the next two form the tapering part of the fuselage back to the tail. There is a port one and a starboard one.

Time Spent Today: 2.0 hr

First FAP Panel Glassed Both Sides

Finally back in the shop.  I ran out of bagging film and it took a week to get more. I need to get better at keeping items 'in stock' to prevent useless delays like that.

Not much to say tho, we just glassed most of the inside of the forward-most HPT panel. We didn't glass all of the inside, just the parts that are not going to bend when the sides of the HPT are hinged up. This will make sense later.

Time Spent Today: 2.0 hr 

HPT has Legs and is Right Side Up

Here is the HPT both up side down and then right side up. The legs have my usual 1/2" bolts and nuts embedded in the ends so that the rig can be adjusted level on the slightly uneven floor. The hinges are some 3' stainless steel hinges I picked up off of Amazon for about $5 each. A bit of over-kill for this application maybe, but for $5 I will find many other uses for them at some point.

Time Spent Today: 6.0 hr

Hinged Panel Tool (HPT) Layed Out

The most significant thing today had to do with a push broom.  I finally got the corner of the shop slated for assembly of the plane cleared and swept. I then laid the panels that make up the HPT out on the floor to check the fit. Tomorrow I start putting hinges and supports on the HPT.

Time Spent Today: 0.0 hr ('cleaning the garage' is something I should have done anyway and so I am not counting that time toward build time)

Glassing Side One of the Second FAP Panel

While the first large layup we did a week ago came out fine, we decided to change to the Aeropoxy PH3665 hardener for 120 minutes of pot life instead of 60 minutes of pot life. The idea is that any excess epoxy in the layup would be more liquid during vacuum bagging and thus more would be removed.

It has become apparent that the vacuum pump we have been using (a 'wet' type pump generally used for servicing air conditioning) is not going to work. It gets very hot after 6 hours and emits a fine fog of oil mist while running. We are switching to a Gast DOA-P101-AA pump from eBay.

Time Spent Today: 2.0 hr

Start on the Hinged Panel Tool

Today I un-bagged the layup we did on Tuesday and cleaned up the excess material around the edges. I hope to lay up the other side tomorrow afternoon.

I also started cutting out the panels needed for the Fold-A-Plane Hinged Panel Tool (HPT). The HPT is a construction technique invented by another Vision builder. The  basic idea is to lay the completed Fold-A-Plane fuselage assembly on the thing and then fold the sides and tail up to easily establish the vertical sides and lifted tail of the fuselage.

I am making the HPT out of 5/8" particle board. The stuff is stiffer*, straighter*, and cheaper than  1/2" plywood.  I bought some stainless piano hinges for a great price to hinge the panels together. Stainless is overkill for this task, but they were only 10% more expensive then the aluminum or steel ones and stainless will be useful on many other projects around here at some point.

Time Spent Today: 2.0 hr 

First Glass Laid

My wife, Lesa, and I tackled glassing the first side of the first FAP panel today. Things went really quite well even though it was our first time laying glass in many years.

First we cut UNI and BID to fit, then folded the fabrics and set them aside.

After vacuuming the surface of the foam and applying micro slurry (syrup consistency) first the UNI and then the BID were laid down and wet out with warm (30C) Aeropoxy using putty scrapers. Adjoining strips overlapped its neighbor by at least 1".  The picture on the right shows the wet out layers getting a layer of perf-plastic before an absorbent 'blotter' layer and a layer of vacuum bagging plastic. We realized too late that we forgot to apply peel-ply to the aft edge where it will join the next piece. Oh well, easily addressed with sandpaper and acetone.

Here you can see the whole layup being vacuum bagged. On the right you can see Aeropoxy being squeezed through the perf-plastic into the blotter layer (the yellowish polka-dots). There is a lot more being squeezed out than I expected; I really thought we did and excellent job of removing the excess Aeropoxy with the putty scrapers. Maybe we did... maybe vacuum bagging is just that much better...

(Note: DO NOT put the vacuum port on top of the part like this. 

Epoxy will collect under it and leave a mark.)

What Ty thought about the whole affair.

Time Spent Today: 3.0 hr

Second FAP Panel Goes Together

Yesterday the first (of four) panels that make up the lower fuselage was assembled and this evening the second one was assembled, again using the piping bag technique to apply micro paste to the edges being bonded.

Time Spent Today: 1.0 hr

Cutting More Parts

The last couple of days saw the cutting of all of the 1/2" and 1/4" foam panels that make up the lower half of the fuselage. Work ended Sunday when the panels that make up the forward-most FAP panel were aligned and micro'ed together using the piping bag method of applying a bead of micro bonding paste to the mating surfaces. The white cloth strips running under the seams between the panels are made of Dacron and are there to keep any extra micro paste the squeezes out of the underside of the seam from bonding the panels to the work table.

Time Spent Over Weekend: 10.0 hr