Well, I finally finished removing the peel ply from the TE.  I then finished cleaning it up.

I sanded most of the Inboard spar cap area, including around the aluminum wing bolt extrusions.  Specifically, there’s a 1″ strip of glass between the Outboard extrusion & the side of the front of wing jut-out (BL 55.5) that was pretty rough & needed some tough love. I sanded it down & got it fairly smoothed out in that 1″ strip.  It needs to be smooth since the rib that gets glassed into the front of wing BL 55.5 jut-out will overlap onto this surface. I also cleaned up the aluminum extrusion faces & the wing bolt access overhang piece (W18).

I installed the NAV2 VOR antenna by running the cable into the foam & down into the wing wiring channel.

Again, I formed & taped an extension for the BL 55.5 front of wing jut-out (where the blue tape strip is in the pic above) to be installed and will allow the glass to overhang straight. (both of my Inboard FC4 pieces were rounded over just a bit for about 4″, so I just want to the glass to come straight out and not follow the roundover… which is only about .1-.2″ deep)

I tacked on the 1″ x 65″ peel ply at the aileron junction (again, on the wing side).

The final large UNI layup on the wing is 1 ply of UNI that goes from the Inboard side straight out to the tip of the wing.  This starts above the aileron & follows the top edge of the aileron at the aft side of this layup.  So, I marked a spot at 5.9″ from the TE at BL 55.5 & put a spot at 4.35″ up from the TE at BL 106.25 to mark the aft UNI edge of this layup.  Now, there are a few other smaller layups that get glassed, but this is the last really big one.

I’m trying to get the wing prepped for the last major wing layup remaining: skinning the left wing’s upper surface.

Today I spent over 1-1/2 hours removing peel ply from the TE, and still had 18″ left to remove.

I then took the tape off the baggage pod threaded mounts.  They came out good.

I routered the Nylaflow rudder cable conduit channel using the Dremel tool.  I then installed the Nylaflow & dry micro’d it into place.  Of course I held the conduit in place with toothpicks.

In the following pics you can see the damage & repair of the split at the FC2/FC3 seam (during the shear web layup & attaching the nose of the wing).

I fabricated the NAV2 wing VOR antenna & mocked it up.

I wasn’t happy with the Inboard wing bolt aluminum extrusion, so I scuffed it up & re-rounded the edge, and then hit it with some primer since I had some shiny aluminum showing.  I’ll scuff up the primered surface & clean it off before glassing.

Today I started out by using the “Fein” saw to trim the spar cap glass overhanging the end of the wing at each end.

I then sanded the bondo off the spar cap dam area & rounded the corner just a bit.

After getting the bondo off & the dam area cleaned up, I floxed in the two upper baggage pod threaded inserts on the front of the wing.  I taped them in place so that the flox cured nice & flush with the surface of the foam.

I sanded the entire spar cap with the orbital sander, and then used the big gun: a belt sander I had picked up for leveling out the spar caps (it cleans them up nicely… also another Randi tip!).  I then vacuumed up all the fiberglass dust.

I used the Dremel tool to remove the dead micro at the seams, junctions and spar cap edges.  After cleaning up & vacuuming again, I cut the fishtail from the TE & started removing the 1″ peel ply I had tacked (stapled) onto the TE.  I had to use the Dremel on a lot of the TE, because if you remember, a bunch of the peel ply came out after I used staples vs tacks to keep it in place.  I did manage to get a fair amount of the peel ply back under the glass while glassing, but not all of it.

I used my straight sanding board to sand the remnants of the fishtail level so the TE was flush & smooth, but I also hit some parts of the wing as well, especially the FC2/FC3 junction SNAFU area.  It looked pretty good after hitting it lightly with the sanding block.

Today I started my last spar cap that I will do on these wings!

I refurbished the epoxy runoffs/downspouts/epoxy recycling assemblies.

I also pre-cut my 3″ UNI tape lengths for laying up in the spar cap trough.

I used a baggy to apply the micro to the edges of the spar cap trough, using the cake-icing method.  I then applied epoxy, again with just a dash of flox mixed in, to the shear web surface.

I laid up the spar cap & then peel plied it.  I also did a rough knife cut on each end.

After it cured for a few hours I pulled off the protective tape & plastic.  By the time I pulled all the tape & plastic off, I was able to rip the peel ply off as well.

I also knocked the dam off.

I removed the clamps from the spar cap layup dam.

I finished hand sanding the sheer web, and then grabbed the Dremel tool and removed the dead micro, epoxy & glass from each side of the spar cap channel.

I re-vacuumed the spar cap & the entire top wing surface.

I duct taped along the edges of the spar cap channel with the ever-ubiquitous protective plastic to protect the wing foam surfaces.

I then shifted gears away from the spar cap prep, to cutting the UNI glass that would be used for the top wing skin AFTER the spar cap is layed up.   I pre-cut the UNI cloth before the spar cap layup on the bottom of this wing as well, I just didn’t get any pictures of it. This was somewhat of a departure from how I did the Right wing, with just the roll of UNI on the dispenser.  I am now a huge fan of precutting the glass.  It makes the layup go much smoother, easier and faster, and it seems to be a little less messy as well.

Today I started by dry microing the wing TE channel.

I put the jig tops (technically bottoms) back on the wing surface & bondo’d into place.  After the bondo cured I flipped the wing front edge up & cleaned the table.

Here below are the two holes I drilled to fix the separated wing sections… now filled, micro’d and glassed.  Clearly, the ability to affect repairs is a great advantage to working with foam, glass & epoxy!

I then flipped the wing top side up and spent a bit of time leveling the jigs & wing.

After I leveled the wing/jigs, I mounted the jigs to the table with L-brackets.

I sanded the shear web/spar cap with the orbital sander & a hard sanding block.  And then vacuumed the entire wing surface.

I then bondo’d the dam in place for the spar cap layup.

Today I re-sanded the area between the aluminum wing bolt extrusions & the BL 55.5 wing jut out.

Since some of the foam on the Inboard edge of the BL 55.5 jut out was rounded over a bit, I shaped a foam “shelf,” covered it in duct tape and then attached it on the edge of the jut out next to the rounded over edge for the wing glassed skin to lay on and cure at the proper/straight orientation.  The tiny bit of a gap created by doing this will be a non-issue since the foam in that area removed down by 0.7″.

I cleaned & vacuumed the work bench.

I put the wing UNI glass in a plastic garbage bags, double bagged (it was drizzling rain off & on) & pre-deployed it to the garage.

I applied thick micro to the deeper joints and used micro-paste on the standard joints.  I then used microslurry for the field.

I used slow hardener and laid up the wing glass.

I used 2″ peel ply on the LE & 3″ peel ply on the “V” around the wing bolt access hole.

I lost some of my TE peel ply that was supposed to be under the layup because I had run out of tacks, and tried using staples to keep the peel ply in place.  The staples popped right out as soon as a squeegee with some pressure on it passed over the glass above.  I’ll just have to deal with that issue when I get to those areas.

I then laid up the BID reinforcement at the end of the wing & peel plied it as well.

I came back a few hours later and knife trimmed both wing ends, BL 55.5 just out & the TE.  I also removed the peel ply from the LE & the wing bolt access hole area.

Today I cut the spar cap ends level with the wing root & wingtip.  After buying batteries for the camera – Yeah!!

” . . .  and there was much rejoicing!”

I then removed the wood dam for the spar cap layup & sanded the area between BL 23 & BL55.5.  I got rid of the bondo and rounded over the corner edge.

I sanded the spar cap & blended it with the contour of the wing.  I hand sanded the bottom wing surface with a sanding board to get rid of the ridges and some minor differences in elevation.  Especially in the aileron area around the split between the FC2 & FC3 sections.

If you look closely in the pic below (or enlarge it), you can see 2 white dots, one on each side of the micro seam, a little forward of the aileron peel ply strip.  Those are the 2 holes I had to drill to put improvised lifting bars through the wing sections to repair the FC2/FC3 split after glassing the shear web and attaching the front wing FC4/5 section.

I vacuumed the entire wing surface, very lightly sanded (and vacuumed again) the Leading Edge (LE) & ran duct tape across the bottom half of the LE.  I also tacked on 1″ peel ply on the TE & 65″ across the top of what will be the aileron cutout (wing side).

Didn’t get a lot done today… and of course forgot those damn batteries!

I removed the peel ply for the Left wing lower spar cap.

I then installed the Left wing tie-down hard point in the plans location for the “thru-the-wing” bolt tie-down, only I used a threaded aluminum baggage pod insert from the Cozy Girrrls… just as I did on the Right wing.

I was exhausted tonight & didn’t want to make any mistakes, so I took the rest of the night off.

I sanded the spar cap with an orbital sander & by hand…then vacuumed.  (I apologize, my camera batteries are kaput & keep forgetting to buy new ones… so no pics again)

I Dremelled out the forward side of the spar cap channel to remove dead micro & glass.

I installed the dam for the spar cap layup with bondo, and then taped along each side of the spar cap along the edges & covered the foam with plastic.

I cut the 3″ UNI tape for glassing the spar cap.  I marked each piece 1-7.

I then dry-micro’d the edge of the spar cap channels the full length on each side.  I found one small bubble/dry spot, so I gave it a quick epoxy injection.

Even the though I sanded the snot out of the shear web/spar cap glass, I added just a dash of flox to the initial epoxy I used for the base spar cap wet-out to add just a little bit more umph to its grip.

I laid up the lower spar cap using the plan’s layup schedule with the added plies as per CP-25.  I peel plied the spar cap layup.

After a few hours cure, I removed the protective duct tape & plastic, and rough knife cut each end.