I started out today with one of my occasional selfies to let the FAA know that I’m actually building this bird. Plus a decent shot of the progress on the strakes, albeit today was a slow build day.
I then finalized the BID prepreg for the final small layup on the front right strake opening that connects the bottom inside skin to the fuselage sidewall.
First pic is the peel plied layup. Second shot is quite a bit later when I pulled the peel ply.
I also did the edge along the GIB strake opening from the inboard top surface of the right strake bottom skin, with 1 ply of BID overlapping into the fuselage about 1″ onto the sidewall.
Again, the first pic is the peel plied layup and the second pic is with the peel ply pulled. I will say going around that 90º corner caused the glass to lift ever so slightly in some areas which will require me shooting it up with some wet epoxy after I finish laying up the final ply of glass on the curved, half-moon portion of the fuselage sidewall strake opening just above and overlapping slightly on this layup.
Lastly, I spent a bit of time dismantling the support clamps, wood strips, shims, hot-glued tabs, etc. to show the attached/floxed/glassed right strake bottom skin core. These bottom strake skins attached not only officially give me fuel tanks, but are clearly significant milestones for this build.
Tomorrow I’ll continue with strake / fuel tank tasks and will then transition into the final nose build tasks and wing aileron glass/install before I flip this bird to sand, shape and glass the bottom external strake skins…. and much more.