2006-02-07 (2 hours):

I didn't go through as many gyrations as some of the builders I've seen. Not to say their techniques are invalid, but I thought this was one of the easier steps I've done. My fuse was sitting on the floor, on carpet. I clamped a SmartLevel with audio beep turned on onto F22's center rail, and shoved some pieces of plywood under the firewall until F22 was perfectly level (vertically). I also leveled the fuse horizontally - it was only 0.1 degree out to begin with.

I then used some foam scrap to position the NG30 assembly at the right height and position. I moved the SmartLevel to the face of F0 for this task, and got IT perfectly vertical, with the bottom edge of the NG30s flush with the bottom edge of the fuse. I also leveled the sides of the NG30s. Finally, I laid a long carpenter's square along F22's center layup (better line than the outside layups) and flush with the centerline I drew on it ages ago (thankfully). I aligned the center of the assembly, which I had drawn onto NG5 and F0, with this square. My assembly was thus perfectly vertical in both directions (to a tenth of a degree), and square to the fuselage.

I filled a small gap between the NG30s and F22 with flox, and made a flox fillet on the back side. My NG30 assembly was slightly wider than my F22 center bar. No problem. I then wrapped a BID tape all the way around from one NG30, across F22, and onto the other. It was faster than cutting two tapes, and about the same amount of cloth anyway. I left that to cure before adding the rest of the tapes, so I wouldn't disturb the assembly's alignment.

2006-02-07 (1 hour):

Today I added the rest of the BID tapes on the insides of the NG30 box against F22, and the inside of the box formed by F0, the NG30s, and F5. It's really a pain to get the tapes in there. I don't know why the plans say it's better to do it on wax paper first. In my opinion, it would be almost impossible to do it properly any other way.

I'm learning about corners, too. I've always tried to make a nice flox fillet, and I've always had problems with little air bubbles around the bends. Today, I tried something new. I mashed in twice as much flox as I needed, making a convex filling instead of a concave fillet. When I laid on the BID tape, I pressed it into the corner starting from the center, and ran my fingers along the corner. This pressed both the bubbles and the excess flox out along the line. I scraped off most of the excess flox as it came out each end, and will clean the rest up when I trim the tapes with the Fein.

I'm also experimenting with putting peel ply into the tape when I lay it up on the bench. Previously, I would make normal tapes, apply them, and peel off the plastic and add peel ply if necessary. This time, I added the peel ply as part of the tape itself. YOu have to be careful to be sure it ends up on the correct side, but it's pretty obvious if you've done it wrong when you peel off the plastic. With some acknowledged hubris, I have to say it would be difficult to forget.