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I made small blocks of wood with 1/8" holes (for the very corner) and
triangular cutouts to hold the triangular longerons in place while they cured. Rick
Maddy thought up this idea, visit www.maddyhome.com to see pictures of his setup. It
works great, you get real nice clamping action without making a mess of your clamps or
having to use nails again. In this picture you can see the little fixture I made to
cut them, with a finishing nail holding them in place for consistent cutting.
There's also a finishing nail on the other end of the scrap piece of wood holding it to
the saw's square. |
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I did a mock up of LWX and LWY to make sure they were, once placed properly,
cut to exactly the right size and angle. Once these pieces were placed, as shown, I
used a pencil to mark where they overlapped and cut them on the bandsaw along those lines. |
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I used clamps, to hold the doubler down and in, while the double was being
floxed to the triangular longerons. The holes I made in my jigs when I built the
longerons helped with this step as well. You can also see the small plywood pieces I
made for a previous step. They're covered with packing tape to keep them from
sticking and keep the clamps from making marks in that nice aircraft spruce. |
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Here's another view of the doubler being floxed and clamped to the longeron
that runs the length of the fuselage side. |
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I knew I had to make several fiberglass tapes or strips to affix LWX and LWY so
I assembled this strip maker, shown here with Emily, my daughter. I placed a
corrugated paper box on the jig table first, then some 6 mil plastic, then a scrap piece
of fiberglass, then another piece of 6 mil. I lifted the second piece of plastic,
applied the epoxy, the replaced plastic on the top and squeegeed out the extra.
Next, I cut the strips with my roller knife. Once cut, you peel the plastic off of
one side and place the strip where you need it. The remaining layer of plastic keeps
the glass fibers aligned. Press in place, peel off (carefully) the other piece of
plastic and oila! Nice, neat fiberglass strips. I think next time,
however, I'll just cut them with shears. The roller knife didn't work too well for
this kind of cutting. |
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Here's what I'm left with after cutting. You can see that the knife cut
OK but a bunch of epoxy got onto the knife and the box. If I do this again I'll use
shears, unless I can get a scrap piece of "hard" plastic like tub surround
material to cut on. That may work better. I didn't actually use these strips
until after the electrical channels were epoxied in, since the electrical channel buts
into LWX. |
| Click here for
Chapter 5 Completion |
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