Feb 24, 2024     Trimmed inboard ends ready for rib lay ups       Category: Wings

Got the inboard ends of the pilot wing trimmed and routed out in preparation for 3 layers of coarse Bid layups to close out the ends. Milestone day as I moved the wings to the garage and the fuselage to the shop. This way, I can jig the wings up and begin to install the winglets. I am going to do both wings at the same time. And I can start on the speed brake on the belly of the fuse, then move on to the bulkheads, and start installing the windows in the fuselage top. Unfortunately, the shop is two inches too narrow to allow installation of the center spar so I will have to swap things back when the time comes. Sidenote: the locker you see in shop is a Cessna employee locker with a tag dated 1948.
the whole thing only weighs about 20 lbs and appears to be made from surplus airplane materials as the cross bar inside to hang a coat from is aluminum strut material.

  Feb 18, 2024     Skinning the top of the left (pilot) side wing - (4.25 hours)       Category: Wings

Skinned the top of the pilot side wing. Everything went pretty straight forward. This is the forth and final wing surface so I had a good idea of how much slurry (roughly 32oz of mixed ez poxy and roughly 32oz by volume of micro balloons), and how much straight epoxy (roughly 64oz of ez poxy) to mix. I will let this cure for a day or two, trim the ends and route out for the inboard end ribs, and make the mounting bolt hole. Then this wing will be at the same stage as the right wing. Then on to mounting the winglets!!

  Jan 29, 2024     Left wing continued - (4 hours)       Category: Wings

Skinned the bottom of the left wing. It went a lot faster than the right because I had a better idea of how much epoxy/micro balloon slurry to mix and how much straight epoxy to mix. And I had a better idea of working time, so I didn't feel like i had to rush, and I knew what tools I would need and had them ready to go. I tarted putting the slurry on the foam about 4 pm on a Sunday and had everything up through the trailing edge straight edges clamped by 7:30ish. I checked on it a couple of times over the next few hours before shutting it down for the evening. This morning I went out and removed the clamps and straight edges, and knife trimmed the TE to the aluminum I beam fastened to the bottom and trimmed the inboard and out board ends roughly. I will go ahead and cutout and skin the wing bolt access hole while the wing is upside down and easy reach, and then let this all cure another 24 hours at least, before flipping it upright to prep the topside for skinning.

  Jan 09, 2024     Left side wing prep for skinning comtinued.       Category: Wings

I was able to glue on the I-beam to the trailing edge and trim the foam core in preparation for skinning. The TRIAX fiberglass skin will carry out on to the I beam. I took careful measurements from the right wing that the previous kit owner started and I am doing my best to match those numbers so the wings are as identical as possible. One pic is a shot right down the I beam as I was waiting on the 5 minute epoxy to cure. That is pretty flat/straight down a 14" ish run!!. The I beam isn't quite long enough for the entire trailing edge, so I glued a small piece of scrap wood to the end of the outboard end to give the cloth a smooth transition like the rest of the TE. some of this will get cut off when I start to install the winglets.
I find I have a much higher level of confidence as I progress. I had the I beam taped, marked and glued up and weighted down in just over an hour this time. On the other wing I bet I spent 5 hours over thinking it and then doing it! I will start filling in seams and gaps and sanding everything today and hope to skin it this weekend.
Also, added a second VHF antennae so there is one in both wings for redundancy. I think that is the first time I had t use geometry since high school in 1988!

  Jan 04, 2024     Milestone moment!       Category: Wings

Got the right wing to the point I could move it to the side and start setting up the left wing for skinning! Cleaned the shop up, and moved all the left over foam core billets to storage. I won't throw them away because I can use the scrap foam pieces to make other items as needed. Now i have more room to work. I already started making necessary markings on this wing from measurements I took off the first wing.

  Jan 04, 2024     Top Bolt Access Hole and reinforcement lay up - (4 hours)       Category: Wings

In the previous post I cut and glassed the lower mounting bolt hole while the wing was upside down. Here I flipped the wing upright, measured, cut, trimmed, and glassed the upper mount hole. Then did the reinforcing lay up from the top to the bottom. I made one goof here in that the strips of UNI were supposed to be 3" wide and I accidentally did 4" wide. No major issue, but it was a mistake I could have avoided by re-reading the manual. Glad it was not a major component. One pic shows the BID wet out on an old transparency from my screen printing business. It is a good way to recycle the old films. I drew the avocado shape of the bottom of the mount hole for that piece, and then wet out a strip for the sides. The stiff film allows easy cutting to rough shape off the wet glass.
The pic with the blue tape is the small piece of Triax you have to add the leading edge where the top and bottom don't meet during skinning. In this case I wet out a scrap piece of triax on a small piece of transparency film, wet the area I was applying it to, and wrapped it around and tapped it. The next morning the tape and film peeled right off and the patch perfectly matched the curve of the leading edge.
The pic with the small squeeze bottle is my attempt and fixing a small mistake when skinning the top of the wing. The book says to wrap plastic over the top and down the front of the spar to hold the triax down while the epoxy cures. It doesn't like to bend that tight and will spring back. Well, I forgot the plastic and the top edge of the triax popped away from the spar in a few places along the leading edge of the spar. The top is fully secure so I don't see a safety issue but there is a small air gap in those spots. So slowly I drilled some small holes into the glass BUT NOT THE SPAR. You could feel the bit go through the glass into the air gap before hitting the spar. I had some small squeeze bottles with a syringe tip that I filled with epoxy and put in these holes one at a time. The clamps kept pressure on the bottle to slowly squeeze the epoxy into the air gaps and fill them. Now when I sand that area smooth and level I won't sand into air gaps. You can see the lighter areas of glass where the air gap is and the dark epoxy creeping into the void.
I reached a milestone here, because this wing is now ready to be set aside, and the other wing moved into place for skinning. I believe it will go faster. My goal is to have it to this stage before the end of January.

  Dec 17, 2023     More inboard end prep - (3 hours)       Category: Wings

Per the manual, I marked and trimmed the leading edge inboard end. This is a little more difficult than the TE because you have to work around a tapered curve of the top side of the airfoil. A good long flexible straight edge helped plus a lot of eyeballing. I marked and cut through the fiberglass skin on the top side first but not all the way though the foam (sorry, forgot to take pics of that process). Then flipped the wing over and marked the bottom. You can see my modified square I used to get a good straight line, perpendicular to the spar (pencil line in skin). Bottom line perfectly matched the front!. I cut through the bottom skin and removed it. Then cut through the foam, careful to not cut the rudder tube. I then used mt drill bit tool and an another 3/8" bit set to 1.25" and in about 20 minutes routed out the foam. I then marked an cut the mounting bolt access hole on the bottom per the book, and lined it with BID. First time doing a lay up like this and it came out pretty well. Next will be flipping the wing back over, making the top mounting bolt access hole, and adding the reinforcing UNI over the mounts. I am then going to set this wing aside and skin the other and get it to the same stage as this one. Then I will set them up side by side in my garage (more room) and do the inboard lay ups at the same time and mount the winglets at the same time. The fuse will move to this area and I will start on it.

  Nov 28, 2023     Inboard end of wing prep - (2 hours)       Category: Wings

One of the first things you do after skinning the top of the wing is to trim all the excess cloth, trailing edge and start prepping the inboard end of the wing for the "rib". Following the manual I trimmed the inboard end of the wing trailing edge making a nice straight edge from the tip of the spar to the trailing edge. The picture with rough strands of cured epoxy is the before pic. After you make the edges straight you hollow out the foam 2" deep. This area will get a couple of layers of BID cloth to seal up the wing end. I used a hack saw blade set 2" deep in a handle to start cutting out the foam. It was tedious and not very productive. I didn"t want to sand it all out as that would have made a Lot of foam dust. I ended up making a rough in tool from some scrap flooring and a wood block glued together. I drilled a 3/8" hole through it slightly off center. I then wrapped a bunch of masking tape around the drill bit at the chuck and stuck that through the hole in my jig. I trimmed the tape back til the bit stuck out the other side right at 2". The n holding the flooring side of my jig up and down so it contacted the top and bottom skin, I spun the drill bit as I moved the jig up and down and back and forth. that routed out the foam to a uniform depth in just a few minutes. The pics show what I am trying to describe. This area will get some glass bubble and epoxy filler applied and smoothed out prior to the fiberglass lay ups. This area is hidden and doesn't really matter about looks, but it is a good way to practice and get more comfortable with the process.
New kits come with a premade end rib that is installed before glassing. I could have ordered one, but decided to just do it the old fashion way for the learning experiance

  Nov 27, 2023     Skinning the top of the starboard wing - (4 hours)       Category: Wings

After a period of no activity I got back on the wing. I had the top ready for skinning back in August but got busy. Went pretty well and I am happy with the results. My goal is to get the port side wing done by the new year.

  Aug 11, 2023     Prepping the top of the right wing for skinning - (4 hours)       Category: Wings

Got back to work last week after having to take a break to handle life stuff. I removed the I beam support from the trailing edge of the wing and lightly sanded the bottom wing skin preparing to flip the wing right side up and skin the top. I temp glued the I beam on the now skinned bottom side and flipped the wing right side up. Trimmed the trailing edge to a nice straight edge, and trimmed all the overhanging skin from the inboard and out board ends. If you don't, the little skies of cured epoxy fibers will grab your shirts, hands, etc as you walk by!! I started the top prep by mixing a dry micro mix of Aero Poxy and glass bubbles to a thick mayo consistency and started filling in dents and dings all over the wing. There were a few gaps along the trailing edge so those got a good fill as did the leading edge. I didn't do as good a job of wrapping the triax around the leading edge from the bottom as I thought. I had a fairly rough edge that needed a lot sanding and feathering in. I used the micro mix quite a ways up around the leading edge to get a good smooth transition. This is the wing that the original kit owner started way back in 1993 so there was quite a bit of hangar rash on this wing and therefore it needed a lot of filling and sanding. The other wing foam cores were still in there original foam block so that wing won't have as much filling and sanding to get it prepped. I am taking all kinds of measurements from this wing and will build the second wing to match as best I can.
I also had to cut and glue in the rudder cable guide tube. The book says to mark the location for it parallel to the spar and use a soldering iron to melt a channel along the line for the tube to go into. Rather than create a bunch of toxic fumes, I found that a battery hold down bolt from a 65 Mustang makes a good channel router! I just laid a straight edge along the line and dragged the threaded end of the rod along it to start the channel. I then laid the rod down in the channel and pulled it back forth until it was just even with the top of the foam. This made a perfect depth for the tube! I then cut the supplied nyla flow tube and ran a bead of thin micro along the channel. I pushed the tube down into the slot and used toothpicks to hold it in place making sure it was below the surface of the foam. After it cured overnight I removed the toothpicks and slopped on some thick micro along the length. When it cured, I sanded it down smooth. After more sanding and filling over the whole surface it is now ready to skin.

  May 27, 2023     Skinning the wing! - (3 hours)       Category: Wings

Recruited my son to help start skinning the bottom of the right wing. It is definitely a two person job!

  Jan 31, 2023     GLued on TE Cores - (1.5 hours)       Category: Wings

I held an open house for my EAA 1475 chapter showing off my Velocity project. After everyone left, I glued on the TE cores i have been busy prepping. Everything came out good. Will repair some hangar rash on the edges and fill and smooth and prep for skinning. This is the last of the precut foam core stock, so I can move all the scrap to storage and get it out of the way.
From here, I am going to move the two wings to my garage, and put the fuselage in this shop area. This will allow me to jig the wings up side by side, insure they are uniform in all dimensions, and skin them at the same time.

  Jan 02, 2023     Preparing TE cores       Category: Wings

After gluing on the LE cores to the spar, I flipped it over and starting prepping the TE cores for gluing. There is quite a bit of hangar rash to the cores from the project being 30 years old but nothing too bad. My goal is to get this wing to the same stage as the wing that was done by the previous owner and skin them at the same time.

  Dec 05, 2022     GLuing core to left wing       Category: Wings

After 12 hour cure, pulled off tape and spacers. Ready to reset and jig for rear cores.

  Dec 04, 2022     Started left wing       Category: Wings

When I got this project only one wing had been started. The previous owner had glued the cores to the right wing and got it ready to skin, but for some reason stopped there. I took measurements for what he had done and they were pretty much right on with the what the book said. I decided to go ahead and get the left wing up to the same stage as the right and skin them at the same time. The cores have some hangar rash on them but nothing major. I followed the book and got the front cores glued on today.

  Jan 05, 2022     Assembled winglets - (2 hours)       Category: Wings

Glued the winglet bottoms to the winglet and started to sand/prep for skinning.

  Sep 01, 2021     Right wing       Category: Wings

Started on the wing by filling in hangar rash and repairing damage from transporting the project home. Took measurements from the right wing that the previous owner built to make sure they were within the book specs. I will match the left wing to those measurements.