Progress was impeded in March 2008 by a trapped nerve which caused severe pain in my left arm and made several fingers numb. This unexplained occurrence prevented me from focussing clearly on anything else for a week or two.
| day |
notes |
hours |
| 1 |
Auto Europe fuse order arrives. The single fuse holders are a bit disappointing as they have no means of mounting, and the 4-way has a curious pillar mount, but otherwise OK. Store them in the small drawer unit. Remove flap from port wing. Draw a straight line at tip between LE and TE and cut off to that line with padsaw. File down smooth with 280mm Perma-Grit block. Re-fit flap and try movement. OK now with aileron neutral, but with down-aileron (ie moving up in present orientation) there is still some interference. Mark where touching, dismantle and take some more off the tip. Find it useful when doing all this taking off and putting on to slip a piece of wire or similar through the FL1/W19 (root end) bearing hole to retain that while I fiddle with the assembly of the more tricky stuff at W21/FL3 (tip). Once the tip bearing is secure, I can remove the loop of wire at the root and insert the bolt. With flap re-assembled, nothing touching any more. Re-assemble OR2 to OR1 to check angles. With OR2 just touching the end of FL3, the flap LE is just about the recommended 3mm from the vertical face of the wing TE. Outrigger latches at about 24.7 to 25.1 degrees flap movement from that datum. The bolt is in the middle of the OR5 slot at about 27.3 degrees, and the maximum travel is 29.8 degrees. |
967.8 |
| 4 |
Remove flap complete with brackets from wing. Try to remove OR2 from OR1 but screw is immovable again. Maybe it's a temperature thing - leave heaters on for a while to see if it slackens off at all. No apparent easing after an hour or two, so dismantle the OR1-OR4-OR5 assembly from the W21s and support OR1 so I can whack the screw with a plastic mallet again. Store outrigger leg on garage roof bracket with starboard one. Remove aileron. Clear tools etc off wing and vacuum up remaining swarf from hole drilling. Start to clean up file marks on rounded recess made on W18s to clear OR6 screw. After some unsuccessful hand work, try the smallest rubber drum sander which works a treat. Polish up with 240 grade wet-&-dry followed by fine ScotchBrite. Clean up mid W18 with ScotchBrite too as it lost some primer during all the fitting & removal operations. Clean up edge of factory-fitted W18 at root to remove cutting marks. Rub down faces with wet-&-dry then ScotchBrite. Start to mask off wing surface around all W18s with large pieces of scrap paper and masking tape. |
969.7 |
| 5 |
Complete masking around W18s. Wipe them down with acetone and spray with zinc chromate aerosol. |
970.3 |
| 6 |
12C, 61% RH. Turn on heaters to thermostat setting 4. Remove masking paper and tape from around W18s. Remove accumulated tools etc from under wing, hoist up, turn over and lower onto spacer blocks on table. Scuff-sand skin and closeout area around horn boxes (easier without aileron installed). Re-fit aileron. Get out the square steel tube used as load spreader for the aileron section of the starboard wing top skin bonding. Can't think how to clamp a stiffener on the wing TE with the aileron in the way - journal entry for starboard wing gives no help. Use a solo clamp at the root and a deep-throat g-cramp at the tip, with a bit of wood to protect the glass. That cramp does not open quite far enough to admit the tube, so put the tip of the cramp inside the tube. Erect an adjustable stand between the horns and insert a wedge to apply pressure to the centre of the square tube. Do a final check of how well the horn-boxes fit and scuff-sand all their mating surfaces. Wipe down all mating surfaces with acetone. Mix 15g + 6g of the fresh Redux and spread it on the flanges of each horn box. Position them temporarily to check contact area and it's surprisingly poor. Spread remaining Redux liberally on wing bonding areas, re-fit horn boxes and weigh them down to ensure good contact. This can be seen through the flanges and it's clear when enough weight has been applied to get full contact throughout. Just enough Redux left for a small sample. 22C, 41% RH. Leave heaters on for cure. |
972.6 |
| 11 |
Now 5 days since Redux applied to horn boxes so turn off heaters. Had considered taking the port wing to Martin Carolan for pre-close inspection today, but (a) it's raining and the wing would fill with water and (b) the pain in my arm from a trapped nerve is too distracting anyway. |
|
| 19 |
Remove weights and clamps from port wing horn box bonding setup. Dismount aileron. Tighten locknuts on ends of both pushrods. Remove all bits and pieces from inside wing and peel off polyethylene sheet that was protecting skin forward of spar from resin and Redux drips. Knock off the few remaining bits of polyester filler paste from the template attachment, and scrape some Redux fingerprints off tip moulding. |
973.2 |
| 25 |
 Order zinc chromate aerosols at special-offer price, plus wire etc, from LAS Aerospace. Get roof bars and wing securing blocks out of trailer and fit bars to car. Get help from Colin across the road to lift port wing onto roof bars. Screw securing blocks on to roof bars; find the rear TE one needs trimming slightly to fit as the edge of the TE seems to project a bit further than on the starboard. Tie it all down carefully and drive to Severn Valley Sailplanes for Martin Carolan to inspect. He is happy with it all except the bellcrank mounting nuts which are still the temporary plain nuts. I had intended to fit the proper stiffnuts before closing the wing, but forgot to do it before the inspection. In theory it could be done from the access hole after the top skin is on, but it would be much more of a struggle. Tie it onto the car again and bring it home. Colin helps unload. Put roof bars and fittings in trailer and take port wing skin out of trailer to garage. |
|
| 26 |
Post inspection counterfoils 13, 14, 15 & 16 to LAA Engineering. |
|
| 27 |
LAS Aerospace order arrives. |
|
| 28 |
Peel packing tape off top of port wing skin. Secure temporarily to wing over LE with spring clamps to keep it out of the way. Remove temporary nuts holding aileron bellcrank bracket, apply Duralac to studs and washers and fit stiffnuts. Put a dab of inspectors lacquer on each - need to remove inspection plate to get at bottom inboard one easily. Photograph bellcrank with stiffnuts to record that I have complied with Martin's advice. Replace inspection panel. Do a trial fit of top skin, noting that is it 3D Mouldings serial P415. Clamp in place at root. When aligned with root rib at spar, TE of skin is slightly proud of rib so will need trimming later. Mark tip length at LE and TE edges and mark line between using flexible ruler. Cut off excess with padsaw. Remove brown foam at tip about 6mm deep for a flox corner. The Perma-Grit spar slotter makes this much easier than last time with less risk of damaging skin inner surfaces. 12C, 64% RH; turn on fan heaters. Check fit of horn-box recesses in top skin. Inboard one is well centred and outboard one is exactly on the limit, so will not need to extend it. Notice that skin fit is poor at tip LE of skin. The flange of the tip moulding rises towards the inboard edge causing the skin to sit proud. The very tip edge of the skin can be pressed down to the correct position, but the angle of the flange causes it to bulge up immediately inboard of that. Something needs to be relieved - first thought is to cut the tip moulding flange along the edge of the top LE skin so that it is free to move and then make a 2-layer BID patch underneath it while keeping it in the correct depressed position. Need to take advice before doing anything, though. Mask off the tip end of the skin top and bottom with masking tape and then parcel tape to avoid the cleanup problems that happened with excess flox on the starboard skin surfaces. Notice while skin upside-down that there are epoxy lines and blobs on various parts of the bonding flange - if anything even more pronounced than on the starboard skin. File them off with Perma-Grit file. 22C, 42% RH. Mix 1 stroke of older epoxy and paint it into skin tip recess. Mix rest of batch with a dose of flox to make a non-slump mixture and apply to the recess with a mixing stick, leaving a small amount for a sample. 23C, 39% RH. Send e-mail to Neville asking his opinion of the best way to solve the tip misalignment problem. Leave heaters on overnight for cure as epoxy not quite firm when going to bed. |
976.6 |
| 29 |
26C, 30% RH. Flox corner well cured. Turn off heaters. Remove masking tapes and file off excess flox flush with end of skin. Check fit again. |
977.1 |
| 30 |
Reply received from Neville - he favours cutting back the inner surface and foam to get a good fit, rather than cutting the tip moulding flange. |
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