I started off today by installing & floxing into place the phenolic tubing that will be the conduit for the Nylaflow rudder cable conduit as it traverses the CS spar front & aft walls.

Again, I’d like to reiterate that these holes were created in the glass layups on both the inside & outside walls by carefully separating the glass fibers so that they went AROUND the holes.  No glass (or shall I saw the minutest amount) was cut or drilled to install this phenolic tubing.

I then measured out & drilled a 2-1/4″ hole (approximately, I was using German hole saw bits so it was ~57mm) on each end of the spar on the bottom to allow access to the wing spar bolts.

After I drilled the holes, I Dremeled out the foam just a bit along the edge of the hole, cleaned everything up, and then dry micro’d the edges of the hole.

Today I started by knife trimming all the edges that needed it, including the newly glassed end bulkheads.

I also sanded down all the edges that required it & removed peel ply boogers.

Today I started by using the Fein saw (again, I call it that for ID purposes, but mine is actually a cheapo version from Harbor Freight… but it works great!) to remove the overhanging glass on each end of the spar & on the straight runs of the oval access hole.

I then focused on the oval access hole with the Dremel tool.  I knife trimmed it as well to remove all the excess/overhanging glass.  I also used my Perma-Grit tool and sandpaper to smooth out the access hole edge and surrounding glass.

I used a 7/8″ bit to drill out the foam covering the electrical wire/antenna cable conduit at each end of the spar.  I sanded it to round over the edge of the hole for a nice radius.

I then Dremeled out a narrow wedged-shaped channel into the foam at each end of the spar around the inside edges of the glass.  I removed the foam on the inside of the glass to maybe 1/4″ deep max.

I sanded the foam faces at each end of the spar, vacuumed the end bulkhead surfaces & prepped for glass.

First, I cut 2 pieces of 7.5″ x 7.5″ of BID at a 45° bias.

Then I floxed the edges of the glass into the channels I had just created in the foam.  What this does is create a fillet in the corner between the existing 4 sides of the glass & the newly laid glass.  Once it cures, there will be a very solid “triangular” (as best possible) corner bead that will greatly increase the strength of the corner, and also the bulkhead’s glass ply covering.

I micro’d the remaining foam in the middle of the end bulkheads.  I then wet out the pre-pregged 1-ply of BID…. which is hard to see with only one ply.  I then glassed each end of the spar with the 1-ply BID pre-pregged layup.

I trimmed the excess glass with my Dritz scissors (still awesome!) & then made an X-cut in the glass over the hole and plugged each one so the glass would wrap around the radiused edge of the hole and cure securely onto the interior of the channel conduit.

I started off today by refilling some more hardener & consumables.

I cut 11-1/2″ wide UNI strips across the full length of the roll at 45° . . . enough for a 2-ply layup across the front face of the CS spar.  I also cut an 11″ x 22″ 1-ply BID piece at a 45° bias for reinforcement around the center spar access hole.

I had a couple delams right along the edge of the angled/wedge corner … apparently I didn’t squeegee it well enough and gravity did it’s work & it separated just a hair.  I quickly gave it an injection of epoxy.

I used a flox/micro mix for the edge & edge divots.  I also added some flox around the edge of the hole as a base layer since the glass was thin but still a bit rough from how it had cured before.

I glassed Layup #8 (2-ply UNI ± 45° … so 90° angle to each other).  As I laid up the glass, I very carefully separated the glass fibers around the holes for the rudder cable conduit, just as I had done with the glass on the back of the spar.

I glassed the 1-ply BID around the the oval access hole & then peel plied the entire layup.

I started today by refilling the slow hardener bottles & cleaning the Dritz scissors.

I then removed the peel ply from the CS spar, cleaned up & removed the peel ply strings & goobers from the layup.

I used the Fein saw to cut the glass flush at the CS spar end.

After cleaning up the end glass on the spar, I removed it from its 2×4 mounts.

I again used the Fein saw to trim the glass along the top & bottom edges (at the angled/wedged corner) so it was close to the foam.  I hit the edges with a hard sanding block as well.

I cut the 5″ x 14″ oval access hole on the front face of the CS spar.

I removed the peel ply at the edge of the oval hole & sanded a beveled transition around the cutout.

I then sanded the entire front face & Dremeled out any dead micro & epoxy.

Finally, I vacuumed the entire spar & the surrounding work bench.

I started off today by mounting two long 2×4’s to the middle of the 5″ x 14″ oval access panel.

I used 3″ long drywall screws & the nice part is that it’s drilled to glass that will simply get removed and chucked.

I laid out the plies of UNI & cut plastic for the pre-preg.

I micro’d the foam with both dry micro & microslurry.  I then wet out the pre-pregged UNI.

I then laid up the pre-pregged UNI glass onto 3 sides of the spar: top, aft & bottom.  This is the plan’s Layup #6.

I cut the edges on each side close to the 1/2″ x 1″ wedge cutouts on the front corners of the spar.

I then floxed 2 each LWA3 aluminum extrusions & 2 each LWA3 aluminum extrusions on top of the existing Inboard & Outboard extrusions.  I covered the LWAs with the UNI & BID plies that I cut on 24 Sep.

I then peel plied the entire layup & weighed down the Inboard extrusions.

Sep 26-28

Researched electrical system (reading Bob Nuckolls’ The AeroElectric Connection) & ordered components from B&C.

I set up the heaters today to get the garage/workshop ready for the big layup #6 glassing, but I couldn’t get it heated past 62°F.

So I pre-deployed the cut glass to the garage & decided to wait until Saturday to do the big layup (so I could glass during the day while the weather is obviously the warmest).

Today I cut 2 sets of the Outboard UNI extrusion caps:  3″ wide x 12″, 14″, 16″ long.

I also cut 2 sets of the Inboard UNI extrusion caps: 3″ wide x 8″, 10″, 12″ long.

Finally, I cut 2 sets of BID for the final Outboard extrusion layup glass ply (5″ x 6″) and 2 sets for the final Inboard extrusion layup glass ply (5″ x 8″).