I decided this morning that before I did my next identified task: micro in the blue foam ‘A’ Block into the pocket created by Layup #2 on the left wing/winglet, that I would first determine the install configuration of the left rudder’s Internal Bellhorn and then flox and glass it into place.

Last night and this morning I did a lot of reviewing of other builders’ blogs, specifically Dave Berenholtz and Ary Glantz.  Dave referred to Wayne Hicks’ method of installing the Internal Bellhorn before the rudders are even cut out.  Yes, a little bit more risk there, but the payoff is pretty high…

I’ll take it!

Thus, just as Dave B. did, I’m installing the Internal Rudder Bellhorns early on in the winglet & rudder construction process.

One reason that branches off in a couple minor directions is this: It let’s me know how to configure my ‘A’ Block and where to terminate it on the aft side to leave room for the Bellhorn to pivot.

As an adjunct to that, it allows you to “bury” the installed rudder Bellhorn in foam and tape to work as a bridge for all the glass going on the outside corner of the winglet & wing.  Wayne has some great ideas, and even though I know it would work and be safe, his process was to do this after the big outside winglet corner layup… which involves cutting into that big layup glass.  I’d rather build a bridge and leave that glass alone.

Here’s my initial placement of my left rudder Bellhorn.  I will say that I ended up moving it at least 3/16″ forward of where it is here.  The nice thing about this spot is that the Bellhorn is as far back as it can go into the rudder pocket, against the rudder internal sidewalls.  The throw is better here too, since you get more of swing out.  However, as Wayne Hicks points out, you also may not have as good as pull geometry and the front edge of your Bellhorn may not go into the wing at all… or get jammed in the aft angle of the wing rudder conduit opening.

During this initial Bellhorn install configuration, the two main things I was looking at are 1) the positioning fore and aft as I point out above. And 2) the angle of Bellhorn pivot arm in relation to the rudder cable conduit.  The Internal Rudder Bellhorn plans points out that at full rudder deflection, the tip of the Bellhorn pivot arm should be level with the rudder cable conduit inside the wing.

Ah, but there is a bit of twist… or better said, an angle on all this.  Since our winglets are mounted slanted inward a bit, then the Bellhorn arm actually pivots DOWN to then reach and be in line with the opening of the rudder cable conduit.   Clearly with the wing upside down, this means there is a slight upward rotation of the Bellhorn pivot arm.

That’s what I’m looking to achieve here: starting a bit low outboard and moving a bit higher at the end of the inboard swing.  That’s what my two taped popsicle sticks are showing me… the elevation of my pivot swing.

As with all things on these builds, there almost always seems to be a “gotcha!”

Well, mine was that as I was dialing in the configuration of the left rudder Internal Bellhorn with the mounting area in the rudder, as I was sanding down the foam I left the internal rudder walls rough.  At one point when I had done another round of sanding to get the Bellhorn just a tad lower to bring the pivot swing a hair down, I pressed down on the aft end and it crunched through a bit of micro on the sidewall that was keeping it higher than the foam… not a huge difference, but it did result in the Bellhorn tip a bit lower than the rudder cable conduit. Enough that I felt I should add another ply of BID for 3 plies total to the initial layup that the Bellhorn gets floxed into.

Here we have the Internal Bellhorn initial securing BID layup in the rudder that will allow floxing and “top” glass to secure the Bellhorn in place.  I used fast hardener so it would cure as quick as possible.

I also realized I hadn’t got a shot of Layup #2 after I had razor & Fein saw trimmed away all the excess glass.

I then floxed in the left rudder Internal Bellhorn and laid up 2 plies of BID over top of it.  I then peel plied the layup and added a taped block with just a bit of weight to make sure the aft end of the floxed Bellhorn mounting arm was pressed as firmly down as possible.

Here is the result a few hours later after I pulled the peel ply.

And a broader shot of the floxed in left rudder Internal Bellhorn with 2 plies of BID securing it in place.

I then spent about an hour and a half making up the ‘A’ Block for the left wing/winglet.

Actually, to be completely accurate I should say I made up 3 ‘A’ Blocks because the first two were fails: #1 being too small right out of the gate, and #2 being good up until I started shaping the inside curve at the forward end… which screwed up the aft side.  I learned to work the front first and then after it was completely dialed in, tweak the back.  Oh, and with a much oversized piece of foam to allow for inside seam movements.

With the left wing/winglet blue foam ‘A’ Block micro’d and weighed in place, I called it a night.

Tomorrow I plan to press forward on getting these winglets installed on the wings!

I started out today by ginning up a bunch of blue foam wedges to secure the 8-ply BID Layup #1 in place and keep it pressed up tight and flat against the inside wing glass and inside winglet glass.

My buddy Dave Berenholtz noted on his on blog that a popsicle stir stick is about the same thickness as 8 plies of BID, so sliding them in place with the wedges gives you a good idea  of the proper thickness required for the foam wedges.

As you can see, I labeled the wing wedges A-J whereas the winglet wedges are labeled 1-9.  You can also see that the fiberglass is prepped for Layup #1.

I then cut and prepregged 4 plies of BID for Layup #1 into 2 different prepreg setups. I also cut all the BID at this point for the right wing Layup #1 as well.

I then wet out the prepregged Layup #1 sets of BID.

I then cut the shear web slit on each prepregged 4-ply BID set and then merged the two sets of prepreg together for the 8-ply Layup #1.

I then laid up the Layup #1 8 plies of BID into the inside corner of the left wing and winglet. As you can see, the slit allows the layup to slide in around the intact shear web.

Here are a couple more angles of Layup #1.

I then slathered up each foam wedge with flox before sliding it into place, starting with the A wedge in the wing, then the 1 wedge in the winglet… alternating up and down, from left to right.

I then left Layup #1 and the floxed wedges to cure for a few hours before I proceeded forward with Layup #2.  Not shown is that I cut the flox corner edges, removed the foam and cleaned up the glass along the glass edges.  I then whipped up flox and filled up the flox edges.  Since I’m using all slow hardener, I want the flox at least slightly cured with as much “body” as possible when I glass Layup #2.  I should note that, per plans, we give the first layup a few hours to start getting into its cure cycle to avoid any exotherms with all the epoxy and flox, but still want an epoxy bond connection between Layup #1 and Layup #2 along the edge of where the wing meets the winglet… kind of at the center of a big X (or + if you prefer!).

Also not shown is that I removed the foam towards the aft end of the winglet (forward of the rudder) to create a channel where the internal bell horn pivot arm will be situated.

About 4 hours later, I cleaned up the protruding foam wedges, wet micro’d the remaining exposed blue foam (about half of it was already covered with flox) and then laid up BID ply 1 and 2 of Layup #2.  These two plies cover farther aft, up to the break between the rudder and the winglet.  They also cover the channel for the internal bellhorn pivot arm.

I also made a small channel in the forward wing end for the antenna cable and ran that through the wing’s foam cable conduit.

Here’s ply 3 of Layup #2 going in while ply 4 is on deck.

For ply 5 and 7 I cut the BID so that the forward portion of the piece had more perpendicular lines (i.e the “wall” or wing edge, etc.) whereas the aft end is a bit angled.  On all the other plies I cut the aft end biased parallel to the weave lines.  Note ply 8 in pic below right.

Also note that for each successive pair of BID plies I stepped the aft edge forward about 1/4″ to allow for a smoother transition when the layup is peel plied.

Here is the left wing/winglet Layup #2 complete… just before I peel plied it.

Again, left wing/winglet Layup #2 complete… just before I peel plied it.

And here we have the left wing/winglet Layup #2 peel plied.

The plans say to wait a few hours to allow the glass to cure a bit before slathering up Layup #2 and the end ‘A’ Block of foam with micro and installing the foam in place.  I’m not doing that for two reasons:  First, I want to ensure my layup looks good, and secondly, I didn’t make up an ‘A’ Block of foam.  I will consider doing that on the right wing… we’ll see.

I then spent a good hour prepping the right wing and winglet for Layup #1 and #2.  I still have to clean all the old epoxy and foam off the exposed glass, and hopefully will get these layups knocked out tomorrow.

It was well after midnight, so I packed it up for the night.  Tomorrow I plan on having another good build day in getting these winglets attached to the wings.

Today was quite cold and I honestly didn’t get as much done as I had planned, but I did spend a few hours to knock out clearing out the foam and then sanding the wing and winglet inside surfaces in prep for Layup #1, which is an 8-ply BID layup.

Tomorrow I plan to cut and shape my foam wedges first thing and then get the left wing/winglet Layup #1 completed before knocking out the right side.  I also plan on getting layup #2, 8-ply BID layup on the wing end and winglet bottom blue foam.

Today was all about getting a really good idea on all the upcoming associated configurations regarding the upper winglets, lower winglets, rudders, internal bellhorns and even the Nav/Strobe lights.

I started by getting a grasp of how the lower winglet will attach to the winglet/wing structure.  I know these pics look pretty much the same, but I added in some extra spacers to assess how these lower winglets will integrate.  Note that the lower winglet TE doesn’t exactly align since the lower winglet nose can’t go further forward currently without significantly digging into the blue wing foam.

The key reasons I started with the lower winglets fitting is in determining where the bottom rudder cut line will be, in conjunction with the internal bell horn configuration and fit into the bottom of the rudder.

The High Performance Rudder plans show the angle in the rudder —where the upper and lower winglets meet on the trailing edge— is located at W.L. 18.4.  In maximizing surface area on the winglets and rudders, I set the upper/lower winglet TE dogleg angle at W.L. 18.2… 0.2″ lower than the plans rudder angle break.

Here we have the bottom of the upper winglets marked for cutting at W.L. 18.2, which will be the bottom edge of the respective rudders.

The rudders I’m building are based off of the dimensions Marco derived off of his flying Long-EZ to implement on his project Long-EZ, which will provide almost the same amount of rudder surface area as the High Performance Rudders without using any of the lower winglet or having a kink in the trailing edge of the rudder. See Marco’s write-up here.

Moreover, both the top and bottom rudder lines will be level and parallel to the waterline/longerons vs. perpendicular (90°) to the trailing edge as on a stock Long-EZ [as in the background in pic below].

After I cut and sanded the bottom edge of each winglet/rudder, I measured out and marked up the rudders on the winglets.  Here is the rudder marked out on the right winglet.  My rudder, starting from W.L. 18.2 is 40.2″ high, 8.5″ wide at the base and 4.9″ wide at the top.

Here we have the left winglet with the rudder lines marked, as well as the left lower winglet set into place.

I then got to work cleaning out the foam and cured micro around the rudder cable conduits.  I also trimmed down the rudder cable conduits as deep into the wing as possible with a razor knife.

I then started cleaning out the foam on the left wing for the winglet inside Layup #1.  Yes, I didn’t get very far before heading out to dinner for a little break.

In taking a look at the engine before I headed out to dinner, I noted that the mounting holes for the Electroair electronic ignition’s coil appear to have the coil unit interfering with the SD-8 backup alternator.

After dinner I returned back to the shop with the Electroair coil unit in hand to temp mount it to check its clearance with the SD-8 alternator.  It definitely couldn’t be mounted with the spark plug connections on the lower side, since it couldn’t fit between the SD-8 and firewall.

However, flipped over —with the spark plug connections along the top edge— it fit with just enough clearance (about 0.3″).

Here’s a side view of the mounted Electroair ignition coil’s clearance with the B&C SD-8 backup alternator.

Speaking of tight clearances, here’s the clearance between the top aft edge of RAM air can and the front bottom corner of the engine’s oil pan.  Not much, about 1/4″, but just enough to squeeze everything in!

Lastly, here’s a shot of the aft side RAM air can again, with clearances shown between both the oil pan and also the oil quick drain.  Again, not much… it’s definitely tight but there is just enough clearance (at least so far) for things to fit.

Tomorrow (Friday) the weather is forecasted to be pretty darn cold here in NC.  Thus I plan to finish all the sanding and prep of the wingtips and winglets to allow glassing Layups #1 and #2, which I’ll do on Saturday when it’s much warmer.  If I have time tomorrow I’ll work more engine stuff as well.

Today I started off by spending literally almost 3 hours going over the finite details of how I was going to install the winglets and all the associated accessories, mods, plans changes, etc.  As in High Speed Rudders (modified), Internal Rudder Bellhorns (the big questions were here!), layup sequences, etc.

Out in the shop I started out by finally finishing a task on my strake to-do list that I had overlooked: the final 2-ply BID layup on the underside of the left longeron and sidewall bare foam, overlapping onto the underside left strake skin.

Now, this layup is normally a 1-ply BID layup, but since I needed to sand off and remove the original 1-ply layup that bunched up along the seam of the top skin edge and longeron wood and foam, I am replacing that initial layup with yet another ply of BID.  Thus the 2 plies vs just one.

After I laid up the 2-ply BID layup on the underside of the left aft longeron —at the GIB strake opening— I then peel plied the layup.  I’ll note that after I took this pic I cleaned up the layup a little bit.

Since I removed the protective tape over the GIB strake window in the right baggage area, I went ahead and grabbed a shot of that as well.

I then prepared the fuselage for the 100-yard trek to the garage to mount the engine by adding in a bunch of weights, about 150 pounds total, in the nose area.

I also taped up (with Jessica’s help) the nose area to allow me to hit the inside surfaces with the gray speckled paint I’m using for the interior nose… since this is one of the last reasonable opportunities I’ll have to do so.

I would have liked a bit more coverage inside, especially under the “nose bridge,” but I couldn’t get the can to fire upside down.  So I did what I could and called it good.  It looks way better than before, so I’m fine with the interior nose paint results.

Again with Jessica’s help, I spent over 3 hours moving the fuselage to the garage driveway, setting up work lights (it was dark at this point), flipping the engine back upright, removing the engine from the engine dolly and slinging it from the engine hoist.

At one point we realized the engine hoist just didn’t have enough hydraulic fluid to lift the engine high enough to mount it onto the firewall extrusions, so we had to set the engine down on the wood engine stand I made for hauling the engine down here to NC from N. Virginia.  I then added more hydraulic fluid —which did the trick— and pressed forward with mounting the engine to the firewall engine mount extrusions.

Thankfully after just a little finagling, the holes lined right up and we bolted ‘er on!

With the engine slung onto the firewall, we then made the trek back to the work shop.  And here she is… many things to do on the engine and of course having it mounted to facilitate the upper cowling install.

With the engine mounting squared away and the fuselage back in the shop, I then hooked up the heated blanket and set all the heat lamps in place to post cure the left fuel tank as best possible, ala Gary Hunter.

And with a good build day under my belt, I called it a night at a somewhat reasonable hour!  Tomorrow I plan on throwing myself completely into the winglet install prep and internal corner layups.

Besides getting the left wing removed and flipped to allow working on the winglet inside corner layups, today was mainly about logistics and prep.

I spent a good 1.5 hours reorganizing the shop and moving the wings, fuselage, carts, large power tools, welders, etc. around to get the wings situated together on one side to allow for glassing.

Here’s a slightly more inclusive view of the entire wings on their new converted taller work platforms, specifically to allow for the wings to lay inverted without the winglets hitting the ground.

I positioned the fuselage in front of the double doors where within the next day or two it will make its trek about 100 yards to the garage to get outfitted with the IOX-340s motor, that will then allow me to ensure proper fit and spacing when I install the upper cowling.

In prep for mounting the engine, I flipped it upside down on its stand to allow the camshaft to get a good bath in oil… since it will probably be the last time the engine is flipped before first flight.

I’ll note that on the way to get outfitted with the engine, I’ll pause the fuselage transit for about 15 minutes and finish shooting the dark gray speckled paint inside the remaining bare areas of the nose.

With the wings off, I also took the opportunity to follow Gary Hunter’s advice in post-curing the EZ Poxy tanks with 3 large heat lamps underneath the strake and heated blanket on top.  Gary recommends a minimum of 2-3 hours at 140-150° F.  I don’t honestly know if it’s getting that hot internally inside the tank, but I’ll follow his recommendations regardless.  My 10 second touch test is promising on the bottom, but not so much up on the top strake surface.

I also threw in a couple standard shop lights in the baggage compartment, and one on the outside strake just to keep things as warm as possible.

I’ll post cure the left fuel tank tomorrow, since I was too cheap to buy 2 heated blankets… plus I wanted to concentrate all the heat lamps onto one tank at a time.  I’ll note that I do intend to post cure the entire airplane up to 176° F for the MGS 285 to reach its full strength, so if I miss the mark in getting high enough temps on these interim fuel tank post cures, it won’t be a deal breaker.

Starting off this morning, I inserted nails into the end of each wing to support the winglets since currently the winglet and wing only contact each other at the edges of their cut lines.

As I remounted the winglets, I of course ensured and verified that the A (102.15″), B (108.35″) and C (118.35″) dimensions were all spot on.

Here we have the “B” dimension on the left winglet.

I will note that after all the machinations to secure the winglets to the wings (hot glue, Bondo, wood pieces, and 3′ stick), on the right winglet my B dimension was at 108.32″, so 0.03″ shy of my 108.35″ target.  As per plans, our tolerance is within 0.05″ so I’m good.  Not of course what I was shooting for or wanted, but the winglet is securely mounted and only about 1/32″ off the mark… I’ll take it.

I also grabbed a closer shot of the threaded spacing standoff for the outboard side of the right winglet.

I started working in the late afternoon in an attempt to beat the sun going all the way down to convert the fuselage dolly (below left) and the wing dolly (below right) into dollies that can support the wings, inverted with the winglets attached.  My goal height on these temporary conversions was 50″.

I the rolled right into making a 10 minute project update video that shows the status of the strakes, ailerons and winglets.  My phone was near dead so I used an old video camera that I thought was good, but the video quality turned out not so good.  Anyway, here’s the video:

Like I mentioned on the video, a few hours after I shot it my girlfriend Jessica helped me remove the right wing and flip it onto the temporarily heightened fuselage dolly.  As you can see, there is only a couple inches clearance under the top of the inverted winglet.

Tomorrow I plan to get to work on the right winglet in prep for the inside corner layups, but also plan to remove the left wing/winglet and get it onto the heightened/temp converted wing dolly as well.

I started out today with placing the winglets on the end of each wing to create jigs to both support the winglets upright and also allow me dial in the A, B, and C dimensions as per the Chapter 20 plans.

I started on the right side setting the winglet in place to then constructed a temporary jig assembly outboard of it using the center sidewall pillar in the shop.

Note the decimal tape measure locked into the corner of inboard aileron at WPRP.  I had bought some long aluminum channel to use to get repeatable measurements, but for me it was clunky and a pain to manage, and frankly by pulling the tape measure really taut, I’m confident that I’m meeting the plans “within 0.05 inches” tolerance on my A, B, C dimensions.

On the right side I screwed a temporary backer board into place onto the center shop pillar that allowed me to attach a clamp on the bottom to support the aft bottom edge of the winglet, as well as cut an angled 2×4 nearly a foot long to support the top outboard side of the winglet.  I simply kept the winglet in place on the top with duct tape.

Once I confirmed that the winglet was in a good general position with the relation to the top 2×4, I then removed the winglet and the 2×4.  I say ‘general position’ since the C dimension between WPRP and very top aft corner of the winglet here is over 120″ where per plans it needs to be 118.35″.  Clearly the winglet top needs to tilt inboard a bit more, and I accounted for that below.

I drilled a hole in the end of my 2×4 winglet support arm and inserted a tap-in threaded standoff.  Clearly by adjusting the 1/4″ bolt I can dial in the C dimension quite easily (more pics on this installed later, below).

I then got to work on setting the winglet jigs up for the left winglet.  This setup is quite a bit different since I have no nearby wall or post to work with, just a work table below the end of the wing (almost as if by design… wink!).

I stacked two 2x4s on edge and screwed them in place as the support for the aft bottom of the winglet.  For the outboard top I screwed a scrap piece of long 2×6 to the table as close to the outboard edge of the winglet as I could get.

I drilled and installed a threaded standoff on the edge of the 2×6 as I did on the right side.  I’ll note that the inboard lean of the winglets to obtain the 118.35″ C dimension required an extra wood spacer or two on each winglet since my standoff bolts were a bit short to do the job all by themselves… a minor inconvenience.

Here’s the left wing trial setup of the winglet mounting jigs and spacers.

I discovered a very significant issue on both winglets as I was dialing in the A, B and C dimensions… something was afoot with my bottom winglet trim job.  I had followed both the template I had and the plans, but the curve at the very front of the winglet wasn’t sufficient to follow the curve of the top of the wing.  I had a good 0.2″ or so gap at the very front bottom leading edge of each winglet and the wing top.

I still set the A, B and C dimensions to ensure I was as close as possible to where I should be with the winglets in place, then laid a fine-tipped Sharpie flat on each wing and marked a contour line onto the bottom inboard edge of each winglet.

Here I’m re-cutting the left winglet on the newly traced contour line to obtain more of a significant curve on the very front of the winglet.

Ahh, much, much better.  It may be hard to tell between all the existing lines and the wonky focus on my “updated” camera app on my phone, but the gap is pretty much gone.

I also re-trimmed the bottom of the right winglet as well, and cleaned up the resulting cut.  I’ll note first that I’m losing about 0.2″ in overall winglet height (no big deal) and that I’m leaving the resulting aft notch at the end of the trim line for now because it makes it really easy when placing the winglet onto the wing to just put this notch up against the wing trailing edge resulting in the front winglet leading edge being really close to the 4.5″ and A dimension lines.

Again, much, much better on fit of the winglet leading edge nose area to the curve of the wing.

I then reset the left winglet in place and, using the jigs, finalized my A, B, and C dimensions.

Here’s another shot of the left winglet set in place with the A, B and C dimensions.

I then did the same thing on the right wing end with the right winglet.  Here we have the right winglet set in place with the A, B and C dimensions all dialed in.

And a few wide angle shots of both winglets with the A, B and C dimensions all set.

I did a final trace of the inboard winglet outline on the left winglet before cutting out the winglet wingtip notch using my trusty Fein saw.

First the top skin and spar cap comes off, then all the foam revealing the leftover shear web.

And Voila! the left wing is ready for the left winglet to be set in place for glassing.

I then did the same thing on the right side.  I trimmed the winglet outline with the Fein saw, removing first the top skin and spar cap, then the foam to reveal the shear web.

I then cut the shear web and bottom skin to finalize the right wing’s winglet notch.

As par usual, it was quite late at this point so I called it a night.  Tomorrow I’ll mount the winglets to the wings with hot glue and bondo.  Then hopefully I’ll get at least one wing removed and flipped over on a workbench in preparation to do the inside winglet layups.

With the MGS epoxy curing on the left strake top layup, I knew I needed to let it cure for AT LEAST 12 hours.  Once I checked the stipple brush and epoxy cup, I knew that I needed at least another 2-3 hours beyond that before pulling the peel ply.

So I started out by installing the recently received AN970-4 wide washer onto the CS126 rod end where it connects to the CS128 bell crank.  Note the temporary standard nut and washer that I removed sitting below.

However, once I installed the AN970-4 washer, I had an issue: my right aileron was pretty much locked in its position, only moving just a hair one way or the other.  Since this was the only real change I made before this issue, I checked this assembly and it looked good.

Upon further assessment, I realized my issue was the AN970-4 wide washer… its diameter is too large and its catching/jamming on the front wall of the open wing root.  Ironically, the washer I had waited to be delivered was the wrong one.  Remember, this whole configuration was based on AN3 bolt installs.  Thus, I simply grabbed an AN970-3 washer and drilled the hole out for an AN4 (1/4″) bolt.

Although I have no pics, I spent over the next 3 hours working on the aileron control system… somehow my CS124 was off its center mark nearly 0.2″ to the left (with ailerons locked at neutral) and my left wing aileron specs were just barely good, where the night before they were looking much better.  Anyway, after slowly dialing in the rod ends on the control tubes I finally got to a decent equilibrium.  Here are my final numbers on the aileron trailing edge gaps:

……………..LEFT           RIGHT
UP:               1.9″             2.2″
DOWN:         2.0″             2.1″

I’ll highlight that these gap numbers are just the end result numbers that quantify the aileron up and down travel. Factors that must be attended to during this entire dance are aileron neutral positions… i.e. you can get the left aileron gaps to let’s say match the right’s exactly, but then at neutral the left and right ailerons are NOT at 0° together.  Also required to be taken under consideration is control stick neutral position and CS128 bell crank hard stops.  The balance act can feel seemingly endless… but I digress.

“Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”

At this point I was ready to start pulling some peel ply off the left strake top layup, but decided to let it cure another half hour while I knocked out cutting the last 3 plies of UNI for the upcoming winglet layups.

Finally we were at a good cure point to start pulling peel ply off the left strake top layups. Here’s the initial few pulls on the inboard side.

Then quite a bit more peel ply coming off . . .

Finally, we have the left strake top glassed and peel ply pulled. I also cleaned up the surrounding tape and the strake leading edge.

Again, both strake tops are glassed.  For all practical purposes Chapter 21 is now complete!

One last pic of the glassed strake tops… on to the winglet installs!

And with that folks . . . yep, I called it a night.

My strakes are done!  Chapter 21 is complete.

(Yes… minus the fuel cap installs.  Ya got me!)

So, in effect, my CS spar has essentially disappeared into the strake matrix… ha!

I waited 12 hours to allow the right strake top glass to cure before pulling the peel ply.

I wanted to check out how well the peel ply work before I glassed the left side and decided whether or not to peel ply the left side.

I’m happy to report that the peel ply worked great and I will certainly be peel plying the left strake top layups.

I then got to work laying up the UNI plies on the left strake top.

Here we have all the UNI plies, per plans, laid up on the left strake top.

Again, here is the left strake top glassed.  Since I used up pretty much all of the EZ Poxy hardener on the right strake top layups, the left side is getting my normal MGS.  If you’ve taken a look at epoxy prices lately (make sure you’re sitting down!) then you’ll understand why I’m so glad I was able to squeak out a rather large layup as I did on the right side using the leftover hardener I had on hand.

Meaning, yes, I will have different colored strakes until I get to the point of applying micro finishing and then painting these bad boys.  I’m thinking it will be hard to tell what epoxy I used after they are primed and painted <grin>.

Then, as I did on the right side, I peel plied the left side top strake layups.

Here are the left top strake layups peel plied.

And with that, I called it a night!