| day |
notes |
hours |
| 1 |
Clamp port aileron hinges to straight-edge and line up. Wax inside of hinge knuckles and hinge wires, insert wires and safety-bend except at inboard end of inboard hinge. Jam in place with wood wedges using alignment tool for inboard hinge-wire position and drill rivet holes, using 3.2 & 3.3mm drill bits as before. Countersink holes with hand-held 10mm drill bit. Take off and remove swarf. Mix 1 stroke epoxy and 1.5 doses flox and apply to hinge leaves and flanges. Jam in place with mixing sticks & alignment tool, dip rivets in Duralac and squeeze up lightly. Erect tent and leave to cure. |
474.9 |
| 2 |
Turn off heat in curing tent. Hinges feel pretty solid, but then give under pressure and move a bit more freely than the other ones did initially. |
|
| 3 |
Take down curing tent. Hinges need quite a bit of flox removing from under knuckles, but are not so tight as the others after cleanup. Bend inboard wire end to safety. Oil hinge knuckles very lightly. |
475.9 |
| 4 |
Copy drawings for aileron mass-balance mounting arms. Bandsaw some foam offcut to 38mm thick. Stick drawings onto it with Pritt Stick and bandsaw to size. |
478.5 |
| 5 |
Clear layup table of most bits and pieces. Unpack starboard wing from cardboard box and move into garage with Wilma's help (we find the tip is much lighter than the root end). Have to take it out the front and in the big door, as winding it in the other end is near impossible. Find when placed on table that including spar it is longer than the space between the plastic curtains. I thought I'd made that area big enough to take the whole wing, but clearly my calculations were in error somehow. I think I got the dimensions off the GA drawing supplied by Andy. Will have to check that, and also figure out how to deal with the excess length. |
478.7 |
| 6 |
Check position of mass balances on ailerons with wing and top skin pieces. Top skin looks a bit close at inboard end, but may be OK. Don't know how close to the skin the mass-balance boxes go, but would have thought they'd be in contact. Take top skin back out to trailer and put back in cardboard box for the moment. Sand foam blocks to fit aileron LE, so that the small rebate fits neatly against the hinge flange. Put wing on floor, LE down, against east side of layup table, to leave room for working on the aileron mass-balance horns. |
479.9 |
| 7 |
Set up ailerons with balance horn area at one end on offcut of worksurface and other ends supported on foam blocks trimmed to size. Check fit of port inner and starboard outer foam horns and fix in place with 5-minute epoxy. Weigh down ailerons and horns to ensure continuity of flat bottom surface. |
480.5 |
| 8 |
Remove weights from ailerons with first pair of horns affixed. Wrap masking tape around horns to give some protection from knocks until they can be glassed over. Thinks: would have been better to leave horns unfixed until later so the ailerons could be stored with less worry about protecting horns. Set up for second pair (starboard inner and port outer) and fix with 5-minute epoxy. |
481.1 |
| 10 |
Take weights off ailerons and put masking tape over foam horns for protection. Check position of W18 plates on wing ribs. Get out W18 plates and mask them off for spraying exposed parts. Hang them by lightening holes on wooden sticks in front of plastic sheet draped over end of table. Spray both sides and edges with zinc chromate aerosol. |
482.4 |
| 11 |
Take ailerons out to trailer and store in forward fuselage area, trying to avoid a place that will leave horns exposed to damage. Find a couple of pieces of mahogany window-frame thicker than W18 protrusion underneath wing and shorter than table width. Clean off old sealing goo, place on table and lift wing up on top of them. Should make a hole in the plastic curtain to accomodate the spar, but for now just drape it over. Mark positions of W18 plate slots on inside of bottom skin. |
483.1 |
| 12 |
Mark up W18 plates 25mm from bottom edge and mask off part that will protrude below wing. Drill 2.5mm starter holes in previously-marked area of wing lower surface for inboard W18 slot. Skin and foam quite easy to penetrate. Enlarge with Perma-Grit swiss file. Grind off old hacksaw blade to a point at one end and work into hole until I can cut along flush with rib. Cut again just inside outer marked line and remove waste. Use Perma-Grit flat file to enlarge slot to correct width. Offer up W18 to check and enlarge ends with swiss file to just allow W18 to fit flush with rib and rear closeout. When correctly oriented with masking tape edge against bottom skin, it only touches the closeout at the bottom so not too much removal of redux fillet there is required. Clamp with small g-clamp and drill 2mm for cocktail sticks in 2 places. Repeat process for outboard W18 pair. Find I can just push the swiss file through as the shape of the ribs here prevent good access with drill. Also easier to work hacksaw blade from below because of top rib flange. After fitting and drilling inboard of the pair, use straightedge to check fore-and-aft position of slot for outboard W18, as the closeout stops flush with the rib here. Clamp and drill for cocktail sticks as before. |
484.9 |
| 13 |
Phone Neville at factory to check if diagram is correct in showing no overlap onto root rib of BID on flap closeout. He says it should overlap & I'm the first one to spot the error. Check where BID tapes have to go and mark with fine pen where scuff-sanding is needed. Measure length of all taped corners and work out total length of 50mm tapes for one wing. Comes to just under 18m, plus 3140mm of 150mm for aileron closeout. Try to find space to lay out BID for wetting. Although wing can be moved quite far forward on table leaving some space clear behind TE, that would mean leaning over wetting-out area to reach layups. Eventually decide it would be easiest to cover the LE D-box with polyethylene sheet and do it there. |
486.6 |
| 14 |
Calculate that about 13 full-width strips of 50mm BID will be needed for one wing. Also for the aileron closeout will need 3140mm of 150mm. Cut off a wing-length piece of polyethylene sheet from the 4m wide roll. Cut off a 1m wide piece and tape it to the wing with masking tape along the spar, leaving a good overhang over the LE. |
488.3 |
| 15 |
Mark out some 50mm strips at 45 degrees on the BID roll. 7 shorter ones and 11 full-width. Take out W18 plates and mark cocktail sticks for replacement in same holes. Vacuum clean swarf etc from interior of wing. |
488.7 |
| 17 |
Cut off 100mm wide strips of polyethylene sheet from end of 3-metre wide offcut and cut them in two to make 100mm x 1500mm. (The full width of the BID roll at 45 degrees is under 1500mm.) Mark out central 50mm tramlines for BID strips. Cut all short marked-out lengths of BID from roll and store in plastic bag. |
489.6 |
| 18 |
Turn on both fan heaters as only 6C although RH just 43%. Scuff-sand all BID tape areas on starboard wing. Mix 2 strokes epoxy and 2 doses flox for fillets, which fills most of the corners in the root area. Try mixing sticks, Polyfilla fillet smoother and tile grout shaper but best results on smoothing fillets obtained in many places with end of gloved finger. Roll out 2 (different-length) pieces of BID on a piece of marked-up polyethylene. Add another couple of shorter pieces with tapered ends overlapping at joints, make up approx 1300mm length. Mix 3 strokes epoxy and pour along middle of BID to wet out. Finish wetting-out with brush, to cover about 800mm total. Cut length to fit rib/spar root vertical corner and apply. Not easy to get well-positioned. Next two, acute-angled corners, much harder still. Ideal positioning tool would be a slim wedge the right length, on a handle not too long to fit in the space. Use up all wetted length by careful choice of corners. Apply peel-ply tape - have to use it 2 pieces across rather than one along the acute corners and peel-ply some of the untaped flox corners too. Up to about 18C by end of layup. Leave heaters running at about setting 3 overnight, as resin still slightly tacky by bedtime. |
492.2 |
| 19 |
Get an offcut of Lexan from Haden-Browne Plastics. Charged sq foot price for an offcut about 8.5" by 19" (160 sq" for the cost of 144 sq") and tossed in another piece 80mm x 360mm for free! Remove peel-ply from BID tape layups. Bandsaw a couple of offcuts of mahogany to make wedge-shaped tools for pushing BID tapes into corners; one length to suit short uprights and one for longer ones. Drill centrally for softwood dowel handles and glue up. |
493.5 |
| 20 |
Chisel and sand dowels protruding at front of wedge tools flush with wedge profile. |
493.6 |
| 21 |
Do remaining 2 inside corners of starboard wing root-spar triangle BID reinforcement. Wedge tools do make it a bit easier. |
494.4 |
| 22 |
Remove peel-ply from layup. Cut W54 in two. |
494.6 |
| 24 |
Find and bag up metal parts for aileron controls. Open up aileron pushrod holes again where BID tapes overlapped. |
494.9 |
| 25 |
Find W16 & W17 parts. Unpack W17 and de-rust inside with ScotchBrite and de-watering spray. |
495.1 |
| 26 |
Clean brushes left over from last layup that were still in vinegar. |
495.3 |
| 27 |
Stick a backing strut onto the blue foam spraying background with PVA adhesive. |
495.4 |
| 28 |
Unpack all aileron control parts W11 - W16 due to be painted and put into labelled ziplock bags. |
495.6 |
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