March 04
A
(positive) mould of the fuselage canopy sill is made over the styrofoam
insert shown previously.
We demould this and finish the sill surface with Duratech then refit it
to the fuselage mould to make the sill mould.
The sill mould will be more accurate and less damageable than the styrofoam.
March 04
A
belt mould for the canopy rail outer surface was laid up on the fuselage
plug.
Offsets for perspex and glue will be by use of packer.
The canopy rail is laid up on the fuselage itself with this belt mould
attached to the fuselage also.
There are regestration dots in the fuse plug that have been retained on
all the canopy rail, sill moulds.
February
04
Fabrication of aileron and rudder moulds.
Craig Player working on the coremat on the rudder mould.
These moulds have generous glue spaces.
January 04
The plug for the tailplane being finished. May need to rework the rear
of
the fin/tailplane juncture.
We have also reground, refinished the aileron and rudder plugs and preped
up for their moulds.
December 03 - January 04
The forms for the airbrake boxes (shown) are made and the layups vacumed.
December 03
The wing shear web itself is used as the dummy or model to lay up the
glue flanges.
A layer of mylar enables the web to slide out of the glue flange easily.
The mylar plus
the peel ply gives the correct glue gap. (there is peel ply insidethe
glue flange also)
A small chamfer is moulded onto the edge of the glue flange to help guide
the web
in and to help hold excess glue.
November 03
The "spars" to close the aileron cutouts were made in a wooden
mould sized
directly by measurements from the shells. Carbon tape goes in the rear
of
the aileron cutout after the wings are demoulded.
November 03
The wing shear webs were laid up on forms to allow the bends. The (inner)
wraps for the spar bridge cores are on. Shown here is dry fitting of the
core and shear web, which will be spliced with graded layers of glass.
October - November 03
The spar bridge cores with the plywood bearing blocks are made.
The spar I section in the wing becomes a box section at the spar bridge.
To get our glueing area at the spar bridge we will wrap these cores with
Eglass twill, glue them between the spar caps then have an outer glass
twill wrap.
October 03
The pictures below are the lower shells. We then laid up the upper shells
in the same way. Upper shell has a joggle laid up at the
same time. You can see blue tape at the edge of the joggle mould. First
pic
shows the tip of the completed upper shell. You can
see the PVC closeouts for the spar, aileron and a rib for later tip extension.
Out carbon twill is on a 1275mm wide roll and we previously found it tricky
to lay in dry onto wet resin for the outer laminate
so we dry cut all our pieces and put a thin line of tape on the cut. Then
the LE and TE were bull dog clipped to a thin batton
before laying in thew piece.
September 03
The
spar caps have been bedded in the trench and the inner laminate is laid.
All the twills for this layup were prewet on plastic. As for the outer
laminate,
a slurry of micro is used on the PVC surface to improve bond and limit
resin soakage.
Part of the "spar bridge" mould is used to align the cap precisely.
September 03
The bond area for the spar cap and any other closeouts are routed and
abraded out of the PVC.
The spar caps are dry fit so there will be clearance for the carbon twill
and glue in the trench.
August 03
Laying up the wing shell outer laminate.
It's winter and we are using a tent with fan heaters and or a big blast
heater to control initial cure of our resin.
August 03
Neil Waterhouse did some gelcoat repairs on small defects in our moulds.
Picture shows Neil and Tom giving final wet cut.
The PVC core was cut and prebeveled. The PVC pieces were scarf jointed,
and a regestration system was used so the whole PVC could be accurately
placed
as one unit in one step.