Chapter 21 – Bottom left strake glassed

Today I finally got the all the sanding and contouring completed on the left bottom strake. With the wing mounted I was also able to dial in the interface of the left strake leading edge and the outboard strake to the wing at the BL55 jutout.  Although not perfect, I got a good match that will allow me to dial it in pretty darn close with micro when I get to the finishing stage.

I then pulled down my roll of UNI glass and laid it out to cut the 2 plies of UNI that make up the bottom strake skin layup.  I actually started by cutting the the top ply UNI since I had a jagged edge on my UNI stock.

Here it is ready to be laid up.  Of course I added a little extra all the way around to account for any adjustments I may have to make.

I then cut the first ply of UNI that will get laid up.  This ply runs parallel to the fuel tank leading edge.

It really doesn’t seem possible, even after the fact, that this layup –from start to finish– took nearly 8 hours all told.  But it’s finished and I’m very pleased with the outcome!

Here’s another shot from the side of the completed left bottom strake skin layup.

Tomorrow I plan to at least finish the prep tasks for the right bottom strake skin layup to get it glassed as soon as possible.

One thought on “Chapter 21 – Bottom left strake glassed

  1. Great work. Looking clean and smooth. Yeah those skins take a while, but they are satisfying. Like the spar caps they just take as long as they need, no compromises available. :)

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