Oct 07, 2021     Empennage complete - (2.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

I unceremoniously finished the empennage this evening. Got the final priming done on the HS and elevator fairings. It's not great but it will work for now. A little disappointed overall with the skin to fairing alignment. I spent so much time applying micro and sanding it out perfect and then when I rivet it on, the skin pillows a bit between the rivets. I think I overdid the countersinking on the fairings. Not sure. The painter will fix it up; I just thought I had done better.

Moving everything out of the garage and to a storage facility this weekend. Six to eight weeks of nothing to do while waiting on the wings.

  Oct 03, 2021     Final priming - (1.5 hours) Category: 12: Fairings

Decided to spray Ekoprime over the final coat of high-build primer just to give a uniform appearance and what I assume qualifies as a sealing primer. It's all going to get sanded off later anyways so mostly just for appearances.
Masked everything and cleaned the fiberglass surfaces with Ekoclean, then etched the portions of aluminum that are going to get primed. Sprayed the VS fairing and rudder fairings. The VS ran a little because it was still wet. I'll sand it and respray it with the HS and elevators.

  Oct 02, 2021     12-3: Elevator fairings - (4.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Quite a bit of time here and there over the last week sanding down the skim coat on the elevator fairings. Very few pinholes. Did the right side first and sanded out all the orange peel, then shot with high build, filled the few pin holes, more high build, then finish sanded with 600 grit. Went ahead and attached to the elevator with pop rivets. A small amount of pillowing between the rivets. I honestly don't know how you would avoid that without epoxy bonding the whole thing together. Masked off the end of the elevator and I will prime with Ekoprime.
Got the left elevator sanded out and initial shot of high build and glazing putty. Finished sanding and installed left elevator fairing.
Overall pleased with the fit. Wish it wasn't pillowed as much. It's certainly good enough for flying and will get all perfect during painting.

  Sep 25, 2021     12-3: HS fairings done - (2.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

In the final fitting of the HS fairings, I felt like they weren't pulling tight to the skin and was worried that the countersinking had weakened the fiberglass. So I went ahead and epoxied some aluminum strips on the inside similar to the fairing.
High build primer, sand, glazing putty over the pin holes, sand, prime, repeat. Then riveted in place. These are done for now. I will shoot a final coat of primer to seal them.

  Sep 23, 2021     12-4: HS/Elevator fairing dimpling - (0.6 hour)       Category: 12: Fairings

Dimpled the skins and countersunk the fairings for the rivets. Had to remove the elevator counterweights to get the dimple dies to fit. Reinstalled the counterweights and final torqued the bolts.

  Sep 22, 2021     12-3: HS/Elevator fairing skim coat - (1.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Final sanded the last round of micro and finally decided everything was good enough to proceed to the epoxy skin coat. Same as VS fairing, squeeged then rolled first coat, then rolled a second coat after first coat gelled. I expect to still have quite a few pin holes on these larger pieces we'll see.

  Sep 21, 2021     12-3: HS/Elevator fairings - (1.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Never ending quest for perfection. Just keep sanding a little here and there to try to get the shape and gap perfect on the horizontal stab and elevator fairings. Right side looks good. Just some final tweaking and checking clearance. Used a tongue depressor to run in and out of the gap to check for tight spots, and then target sanded those to get it uniform.
Still wasn't happy with the left fairing after last batch of micro. The break point ended up in the wrong spot. Sanded much of it down and redid it. I think I'm happy with it now, but still had a little bit to fill near the leading edge. Should be able to sand out that last bit of micro and will be ready for epoxy skin coat and final sand.

Keeping track of time is a guess as it is usually just several trips to the garage of a number of days. Maybe only 10-15 min at a time for a little sanding and admiring.

  Sep 19, 2021     12-3: More fairings - (4.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

A lot of work on and off over the weekend. Got the right HS fairing filled and final sanded. Came out really well after having the cut it and adjust. Proceeded with the left HS fairing. Got it drilled up to #30 and applied micro. Tried to fill the gap with the elevator a bit but overshot and had to sand a lot of it off. Still needs some fine tuning.
While HS fairings were curing I proceeded with the epoxy skim coat on both the VS fairing and the top of rudder fairing. Applied one coat with a squeegee followed by foam roller. Then once the first coat gelled, I went over it with a second coat of epoxy on the roller. Once cured, I sanded out the epoxy to remove the orange peel and then shot a first coat of high build primer. Filled the few pinholes with glazing putty, sanded, primed, repeat. Final sand of the high build primer with 400 grit, then one final coat of normal primer and final sand with 1000 grit.

  Sep 17, 2021     12-3: More HS fairings - (2.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Marked and trimmed the left fairing similar to the right. Rough trimmed the already cured closeout piece and superglued to the fairing.
Removed the fairings from the stabilizer and cut two pieces of BID glass for each to put on the interior. Then mixed up some flox to put a fillet on the inside of the fairings to permanently bond the close out pieces. As I was applying the the flox, I notes that the superglue was loose on the right fairing. I sure if the alignment would be right, but with wet epoxy mix I proceeded. Then laid in the two layers of BID before the flox cured.
When everything was cured I trimmed the excess and checked fit against the horizontal stab. Sure enough the right side must have slipped when the superglue failed and the was a pretty good sized gap between the fairing and the stab.
To fix it, I cut a line down the close out piece close to the fillet with the intent of reinforcing it with additional glass on the inside and outside. Made the cut and applied the outside glass to hold alignment. Also applied some micro to the outer porting of the fairing to reduce the fairing gap a bit as I think it is a bit larger than I'd like. A bit of a setback, but I think it is recoverable.

  Sep 12, 2021     12-3: HS fairings - (1.2 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Started work on the HS fairings. First had to get he shope rearranged a bit and mounted the elevators onto the HS. Used a piece of card stock to trace the limits of the elevator counterbalance to use as a template for cutting the HS fairing. Drilled and cleco'd the fairing in place. Had to guess a little on the gap to get it to align with the elevator.
Cleco'd the template in place and traced the outline of the counterbalance into the fairing and then cut with a deemed to about 1/8” clearance. Sanded out smooth and check alignment with the elevator. Close enough.
Then cut a balsa template to try to match the counterbalance shape and better align the HS with the elevator. Once satisfied, took the previously laid up closure piece and traced the outline and roughly cut to fit. Then superglued to the fairing.
Will do the other side prior to flow and interior reinforcement.
Overall went pretty quickly.

  Sep 10, 2021     12-2: Left elevator tip - (3.8 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Got left elevator sanded to fit and roughed up for flox. Taped the joint with electrical tape and applied flox to fill the joint and build up the leading edge similar to right side. Getting better at this.

In the morning, sanded out the flox and then retaped applied micro. Then sanded out the micro in the evening.

Also laid up one of the close out pieces for the horizontal stab fairing. Bent a piece of aluminum to roughly match the angle of the elevator fairing. Then laid up two layers of bid glass between plastic.

  Sep 07, 2021     12-2: Right elevator tip - (1.2 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Got the rough sanding of the right elevator done with my permagrit bar. Wasn't happy with the trailing edge thickness matching up to the skin so put it briefly on the belt sander. Took off a little too much but will build it back up with micro.
Got everything taped for micro. Switched to electrical tape for masking the edge of the skin, seems to work better. Applied the micro to the bottom and sanded down. Then applied the micro on the top.

  Sep 01, 2021     12-4: More VS faring - (2.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

I finally broke down and ordered a Permagrit sanding bar. Everyone says “you've got to get permagrit tools” but you never truly appreciate it until you have one. What a difference. Cuts through flox like butter.

So I was able to make pretty quick work of the new leading edge shape. Very pleased with it. It's ready for micro. And then after much web research I learned that I need to be apply a skin coat of epoxy to seal the micro before finally sanding and high build primer. Makes sense. I ordered some foam brushes for applying.
After punching out the blind rivets that are holding the fairing in place, the clecos don't hold as tight as they used to. Which made me concerned that the replacement rivets won't hold tight either. A lot of folks bond an aluminum strip to the inside of the fairing to prevent crushing of the fiberglass and a rivet pullout. I decided I might as well go that route while I have it opened up.
Mixed up epoxy and laid two more layers on the front of the fairing to close up the rudder gap and then mixed remaining epoxy with flox to bind the aluminum. I primed on side of the aluminum strips with self etch and scuffed the other side prior to bonding.

Was able to get the micro applied before bed.

Purchases: Amazon: permagrit sanding bar, foam rollers, electrical tape.

  Aug 30, 2021     12-4: Back to VS fairing - (1.0 hour)       Category: 12: Fairings

Looking over my work on the VS fairing, I realized I had made a bit of a mistake. I filled the front of the fairing to align with the BS but tapered back to meet at the top. I should have done a better job of maintaining the angle of the BS leading edge. Mine had a bend in it.
Decided to punch out the rivets and fix it. Used flow since it is on the leading edge and I want it tough. Sanded out the primer down to bare glass and slathered it on using my long straightedge to check alignment. I think I will also take to opportunity to add a few additional plies of glass on the back side to close the gap with the rudder.
One step forward, two steps back.

  Aug 29, 2021     12-2: Elevator fairings - (2.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

I had already cut and drilled the right fairing, but there was a fairly large gap at the front where it should align with the counterbalance. I mixed some flox and filled in the front of the fairing along with the joint to the elevator skin. Let that cure and did the first pass at sanding it smooth. Going to proceed with left fairing before coming back to micro fill them both.

Cut and drilled the left fairing. May do some flox later tonight.

Also took the HS off the tailcone and organized the shop a bit in preparation for moving these pieces to storage soon.

  Aug 28, 2021     12-4: VS fairing - (1.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Filling priming and sanding VS fairing. Got it to a pretty good place. Good enough to rivet in place. Dimpled the holes, countersunk the fairing and installed the blind rivets. Done for now.

Also, went to Sulphur Springs for breakfast and saw a nice -10 on the ramp. Got to check out some details like how he did the fairings. His were glassed over or filled smooth. Looked pretty good.

  Aug 15, 2021     12-3: Rudder fairings - (3.5 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Sanded out the micro on the top and bottom rudder fairing. Not perfect yet, but good enough to shoot a coat of primer to see where the flaws might be.

Moved on to making the bottom fairing removable. Upsized the holes with a #28 for the #6 screws. Used the nut plates as a guide and drilled the first #40 hole on each side, then cleco'd and drilled the other side. Countersunk the #40 holes by hand with the deburring tool, only took a few turns. Then used the countersink cage in the drill to countersink the #6 screws checking them against my test coupon. Installed the nut plates with 3-3.5 rivets. Realized that I will need some single sided nutppates for the front holes. Ordered those from ACS.

Dimpled the rudder bottom skins for the #6 screws. Everyone of them left a small crease above the hole. I thought I was just not holding the squeezer straight but finally realized the female die was hitting against the bottom rib. Had to make a low profile dimple die for the final trailing edge hole and squeezed with a pair of vice grips.

Then spent an hour cleaning up the shop.

Purchases: ACS: nutplates

  Aug 14, 2021     12-2 & 12-3: Rudder fairings - (4.0 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Started work on the fairings on and off over the last few weeks. Today was the big day to actually mix some epoxy and do some filling and sanding. Starting with the rudder fairings, I match drilled the fiberglass fairings to the rudder. They fit pretty well, but I'm following the procedure in chapter 5 to sand back the edge of the fairing along the seam and fill it flush to the rudder with flox. Wrapped the rudder in clear tape and cleco'd the fairings in place. Then mixed some epoxy and flox and smeared it across the joint. Also used flox to build up the front of the top fairing to align with the counterweight better. Tried to minimize the amount of flox since it will be tough to sand. Seems like some use micro for this step, but I really want the new edges to be durable.
Let it cure for a few hours and started sanding. I removed one cleco at a time to compromise between holding the fairing tight to the skin and providing some room to sand. 80 grit with a small wood block wasn't too bad to get through the first pass of sanding along the joint. Then removed the fairings and sanded the remainder of the flox smoooth. Replaced the tape on the rudder skin with fresh tape, reinstalled the fairings and then slathered on a micro mixture to get the first pass at smoothing out pinholes and touching up any low spots along the seam.

I'll let the micro cure over night and sand tomorrow.

Trimmed and match drilled one of the elevator fairings too.

  Jul 28, 2021     12-3: Rudder fairings - (1.2 hours)       Category: 12: Fairings

Started some fairing work on the rudder. Just roughing out the mold lines with 80 grit followed by 150. The flange length on the bottom fairing was fine, just had to cut out the end where it conflicts with the trailing edge wedge. Had to cut back the flange on the top fairing.
Aligned the fairings as best I could based on the flange joggle on the pieces and the match drilled and cleco'd in place. Fits pretty well. I will end up sanding out most of the formed joggle and reform it with epoxy and flox, matched perfect to the rudder.

The bottom fairing will get modified for nut plates and screws. This will require countersinking the fiberglass. I made a #6 dimple test piece as well as a spacer to allow the countersink cage to sit right against the flange joggle.

Purchases: ACS: epoxy, glass, Cleaveland: #6 countersink bit