I finally got back out in the garage after being knocked out with the flue for a week. Last night I just decided to try and get my old scroll saw working. I am not real thrilled with the formers that I have cut out with the jigsaw and I especially want to be able to cut some consistent curves when I make the sanding tool for the fuselage curves. I have to say that I have found a site that talked about the details of building the Corvair engine. I am still a way from working on that, but I loved the detail on the website

http://www.roysgarage.com/new/Welcome.html

I hope to be back out in the garage this weekend and getting moving on the fuselage

In spite of being sick I was able to do a little work here and there. I finished sanding the vertical tail and I attached the edge where the copper wire for the antennae goes. I also worked on the two stands for the forward fuselage bottom. I am not happy with the x-30 foam material. I will have to use some micro to get the gaps and uneven parts right. I am going to finish work on the wire first. The key part of the stands is to make sure that they are level in all three directions. The height off the floor is not as important as the levelness.

So here is another fine mess. Here you see a close up and a big picture of the vertical tail that I am working on. This material X-30 combines two liquids and the reaction between the two is an expanding foam which hardens like a rock pretty quickly. At first I thought it would be use to attach the blue foam to the ribs. Then I thought it would be a good material to even out the foam and fill in the gaps. Well none of that has worked very well. The foam expands wonderfully. In fact I don't know why the foam isn't used to just fill in the whole section between the ribs. But anyways it does not spread very well at all. I poured it into some holes and it expanded and filled the holes, but spreading it to make a smooth surface just did not work. So I ended up with some very lumpy application which when attempting to sand it down to a smooth surface doesn't work because it just cracks off the foam. You can see on the close up where I tried to create a smooth layup of this material, but it just clumps together like lumpy soup and gets more uneven not less. At this point I am thinking of ripping out the blue foam and using just a dab of X-30 in a few spots. But I don't know yet.

Last night I started playing with the X-30 foam. The directions were to mix it, apply it, and stuff the blue foam in between the ribs. Well I mixed too much at first. I was not expecting the expansion. Then I tried spreading it on the ribs before it had hardened and it just did not spread very well. I found that it poured pretty good so I made up smaller batches and poured it in the gaps. When I finished some of the the left over expanding cups (you can see them in the picture) hardened incredibly hard. I wonder why you don't just pour it in between the ribs and let it go. Oh well I am just following directions. Notice the two floor bottoms standing up. That is one too many.

I spent 20 minutes just cutting out the forward fuselage bottom from the layup I had done. The second one because remember the first one was 2 inches too short. As Brian nicely pointed out. I need to more careful all the time. I am now exactly where I was before Christmas. I lost a month and a half. I am not tracking my time I am just trying to work. I was spending too much time finding the right podcast or music and keeping track of the work that I lost a little sight of the goal of eventually flying a plane.

I have been working a little more. Once I get this piece cut out (it is already fiberglassed just not shown in the picture) I will be back where I thought I was before Christmas.

I have no picture today. I actually glued something last night. Unfortunately I have to redo the bottom of the forward fuselage. I don't know how I messed it up so badly. 2 inches!! It felt good to get out there and glue something. All I did was attach the 6 inch addition to the 24 inch foam. Tonight I hope to layout the bottom and sand the joggles. Saturday I hope to lay up the fiberglass and then maybe next week I can start setting up the formers.

1148 Days 1924 Hours

I can't beleive it has been over a month. we were out of the state for about 2 and half weeks and with Christmas and New Years it has been difficult to get back out to the garage. Well last night (after cleaning up a lot) I started looking at where I was at. I measured the bottom side of the forward fuselage and it was 2 inches short! How can that be? I cannot believe that I made that big of a mistake. I am going to have to do it over. Arghhh. What happened? I have no idea. All I can do is keep moving forward.

BTW I got x-plane and a flight sim yoke for Christmas. I hope they motivate me to get out to the garage more and not keep me from working on the plane.

1192 Days 1925 Hours

We are back from Thanksgiving. I spent about 2 hours cleaning the garage. Then it was late so I just thought I would spend a little time cutting out these negative forms so that I can form the leading edge of the Horizontal. It certainly would have been a lot easier if I would have done it with the foam instead of trying to fix it after the fiberglass is laid down. I don't know how the others are moving forward. Do they have secret directions? I also wish I would have understood that peel ply on seems is what the directions were asking for instead of the big long sheets of fabric that I have been using. I have a terrible sharp edge on the Horizontal that I am going to have to micro over.

1200 Days 1928 Hours

Again no picture while Kim has the camera in CA. Last night I cut out the sides and bottom of the forward fuselage. I cut close to the line and then sanded the rest of the way. When I cut off the extra I tried to test the strength of what I had done. I easily broke the pieces and could see that the weakest link was the attachment of the fiberglass to the foam board. It makes me wonder how strong this stuff is or how strong it should be.

I also spent some time fixing the blue foam into the vertical. I knew that I needed some for the leading edge so I laid out the vertical on some cardboard and traced what I needed. I then could place the cardboard on the foam board to minimize the use. I spent some time fitting and sanding it into place. That was probably not that necessary since I will take it out and install the antenna and cable before fixing it in place. I am leaving for Ca for the rest of the week so I will probably end up with fewer than 40 hours for the month. I want to ramp up and start putting in 60 per month. I don't know if that is possible. Kim has been so good to me. She knows how much I hate work and she encourages me to work on the plane. I feel a little guilty because I don't want to hate work to get permission to work on the plane. It is a complicated.psychological trick.

1202 days 1931 Hours

No picture today. Kim took the camera to CA. I was gone all week on a business trip to North Carolina. Originally the plan was that Kim would leave for CA (Thanksgiving Holiday) on Friday after the kids got out of school before I even got home from NC. Well she decided to wait until Saturday. I couldn't very well come home after being gone for a week and ditch them all to go work in the garage. I didn't even think about looking in the garage until she was gone.

They all left about 1:30PM. I then set out to work in the garage. But first I wanted to load some podcasts on the ipod so I could listen while I worked. After 2 trips to the Apple store I finally figured out that I needed to order and new cable for our old ipod. I found a source online where I could get it for $3. The Apple store wanted $30. The original ipod only cost us $50. Next thing I know it is 6:30 and I had promised that I would go to the temple. I got home from the temple and started working about 10:00. 3 Hours later I had finished the inside of the forward fuselage bottom. I am sure I could have done a better job. It seemed to take a lot more glue than normal. And my overlaps were too frequent. It is supposed to be the inside which could be cover with carpet or some other covering. Once again I am questioning everything that I do, but I keep moving forward. I did find that I could load podcasts on a CD and listen to them. I listened to 2 CDs and threw them away. 5 cents a CD is pretty cheap. I would have to waste 1,000 CDs before I could have paid for an ipod. That is about 3 years of CDs which by then the ipod would be outdated or too old to work any more. It just seems like a waste of CDs I am not throwing anything away when I use the ipod.

I read online about using Mazda engines for airplanes. I am going to stick to the plans and not deviate at all. That is the advice Boyd gave me. He also told me to build a different plane. I also saw the latest version of kitplanes which had a list of home builts. There was one that had enough room for 10 people. A home built. I will be lucky to finish this one. No time to start planning the next one.

1209 days 1934 hours

I pulled the peel ply off of the channel ribs and it was so smooth inside, which is a good thing since a cable will be in there.



Here I am working on the bottom of the forward fuselage. I am sanding the joggles. I know it is important to have a radius at the edge because the cloth does not do right angles. I was really quick at this compared to the first time. This whole fuselage took me an hour. Notice I hung the vertical frame up on the horizontal.





Here I am laying down another section of the second layer of fiberglass. I am getting a lot more comfortable with cutting on the bias. I think I realize that Scott was only applying peel ply to the overlap of the layers. I put peel ply over the whole thing. This layup took a lot more time because I spent a lot of time working on the radius at the edge. I didn't like how the job turned out. I especially unhappy with the bump that is apparent from the joining of the 6" to foam board. I could have done a better job putting those together or a better job smoothing it out before I laid down the cloth. My total time for today was 5 hours. Just to do this one section. I am out of town all of next week so this will be it for awhile.

1211 days 1939 hours

I came home at lunch again and first tacked in the one side of the channel rib with 5 min epoxy and then locked it down with two layers of Bidirectional Fiberglass. Look how bad the fit was. That gap at the top is not good. I am hoping I can make it up when I glass the whole wing. I also made a mistake in thinking that locking down one side of the channel and then the other would be better. Well it turns out that after all those layers of fiberglass the other side sits on top of those layers and is actually higher than this side.

I am glad that I am finding a use for all that extra fiberglass I had laying around because of cutting on the bias.

I this next picture you can see I used the light and finished locking down the other side. It took a lot longer because it was a pretty tight squeeze and I was trying to be careful. I am understanding that the radius on the corner with the slurry helps lay down the fiberglass. The fiberglass really can't do corners. I will remember that as I sand out the joggles. I will make sure I either radius the corners with micro or I will sand a radius into the joggle.

1214 Days 1942 Hours

I had to wait for the glue to cure on the vertical so I moved on to the bottom of the fuselage. All I did was mark the 10 points and connect them. I had previously attached 6" to the sheet of 23" x 92". I will sand the joggles and cover later. I was much quicker this time around.







I started attaching the channel ribs. I had even tacked in one side with some 5 minute epoxy then I remembered that I hadn't drilled the holes and then I remembered that I hadn't added the two layers of bid for the pully. So I tore it off and layed up the two layers where the pully will go. I know that peel ply is not neccessary, but this is the inside of the channel where a cable will run and I like the smooth surface it creates.

I am still struggling with my fit especially the bottom channel rib cap. I am hoping that I can make adjustments later if I need to.

1215 days 1944 hours. I spent the whole time trying to get the last rib and the channel ribs on right. The first picture shows the channel rib sticking up too high. It fit the template perfectly. Well after sanding to make things fit right I made the bottom rib too short and had to cut another one out. Now things look right, but they do not fit the template perfectly. I am just lucky that I didn't accidently have two left channels. I was on top of things enough to make sure I got the unglassed portion on the outside. I am also quite unclear how that last piece fits. That curved channel rib on a flat piece. I don't know.

1216 Days 1947 Hours

I really don't get this blogger. Yesterday's post was ugly adn I don't have time to play around with it. I came home at lunch and micro'd the edge and layed down the bid on the ribs connected to the spar. Tonight I had to create another piece for the channel that connects to the largest rib (the one at an angle) That was good, because I needed to give the resin a little more time to harden. I then went ahead and edged the rib/leading edge joint and layed down the BID. I did not want to mix another batch or resin so I was really scraping the last bits of it to fully wet out the BID on the ribs. I just have that last rib that runs at an angle sitting there with some tape. I guess I have to do the same with it before I add the channel ribs. I will definitely go back to the manual to just review what I am doing. It seems like so little, yet took over 2 hours to do all of that.

Funny thing Kim came out to the garage to do laundry. I got a little bit of a glimpse of how it would be to be in the garage together. She then smelled the resin. What is that smell? I couldn't smell anything. Is that good or bad?

1218 Days 1950 Hours

I am really stealing time. It is 2AM and Kim jsut went to bed. I cannot even walk into the garage on Fridays. That is our date night. Then after we got home from the movies and the kids were all in bed Kim got ready for bed and I asked if it would be ok if I went and worked in the garage. I have to be at the Scout-O-Rama at 8AM. But I got two hours in. Actually I got a half hour at lunch. I glued the 6 inch left over piece to the 24 inch piece to make the floor of the forward fuselage. I am a little concerned about the gaps and excess glue.








Here you can see the gaps more clearly. Those will get slurryied when I got to lay up the Fiberglass. I am always questioning myself, but moving forward.










I am finally back to working on the Vertical. I used 5 minute epoxy to tack on these 3 ribs. I will verify in the morning that they are still square and then use some of that left over BID to lock them down for good. I should have layed down some protective sheeting before doing this. Notice my fancy shop vac in the background.

Popping Rivets Sitting Pretty

1219 Days 1952 Hours

That far rivet is not a good rivet. I will have to hammer that down to fix it. The rivets I got were just a little bit longer than 1/4 inch. They should sit in the hole before I pop them, but they don't so I have to squeeze them and then push them further in the hole. All the others are fine. This was the one bad one. Look at the gap between the nut plate and the aluminum strip. Again could have been done better. I am learning. I didn't have the first clue about riveting before this project.

This plate is part of the vertical spar which is what will hold the rudder. I made sure that the holes lined up center. Which makes me recommend that the wood hard point not be drilled through until they are fiberglassed in. The hole in the hardpoint will be drilled through once it is locked in place. It is mentioned that centering it is critical

After getting back from Boyd's where I can borrow tools like a pop riveter and drill press I pulled the peel ply off the sides. Scott doesn't say to put peel ply on the inside, but the class I went to at the copper state fly in said always put peel ply on and leave it on until you are ready to use the piece. These are the obligatory pictures of our first seat in the plane. Kim is so good to me.

BID on the backside

1220 Days 1954 Hours

I haven't figured blogspot out yet. These pictures are in reverse order because we read from top to bottom. Here are the finished insides of the forward fuselage side panels. That is peel ply which I will peel off tomorrow. I got back into the garage about 1030PM tonight. This big of a layup is a commitment, no stopping half way. Did I move to quickly? Was I careful enough? Did I apply too much resin? not enough? What am I doing? Can I really do this?

I came home at lunch and decided to try and get some quick work done. I only had a single layer of Bidirectional Fiberglass and no joggles to deal with. I actually thought I could get both halves done, but it took me an hour and half and I only finished one before I had to head back to work. It was warm today and I was a little worried that the resin would harden up before I got to use it all. I had made a big batch. Just to lay down a slurry on the sided was about 200 grams of resin. The exotherm did not happen, but in my hurry I cut my BID bias strips to short and had to use 4 sections when I could have done it in 3. One layer overlapped by a good 5 inches. I don't know if I will get enough time to finish the other half tonight. I have plenty to do, but I am running out of Micro balloons which are used a lot of the slurry.

Laying down 2nd side forward fuselage

1222 days 1957 hours

I emailed Scott Watts the designer of this plane and asked about a template for the Hstab leading edge. He said that he had changed the way the Hstab is built and that this could be used as a template. I just rigged something up to see how far off I was. It would have been easier to sand the foam rather than add micro to the fiberglassed edge. You can see the gaps that I will have to fill in. I don't know how hard that will be

I laid up the other side of the forward fuselage. It took me 2 hours rather than 4 hours.

I am now working on three parts simultaneously. I am not sure that is good. I got the rivets for the Vstab, the template for the Hstab and I have started the forward fuselage. I will have to get some more peel ply before I do more on the forward fuselage. I am running low on Micro Balloons.