Monday, September 2, 2019

A lot of small steps

The control surfaces are in the paint shop.



After much trimming, I finally felt that I had a good fit for the bulkhead and cut one out. Another kitbuilder at the airport had some extra glass layups from his kit and kindly donated a piece to OspRey. 



Note the mockup battery. I finally got wise and made it out of scrap wood, allowing me to fit the 16# battery without being terrified of dropping it and breaking the hull. 



Tack the bulkhead into place with 5 min epoxy, and wait for it to dry.



Then make fillets. I was doing this on a Friday afternoon and plannig to work through the weekend when I realized I should check my supply stock. Sure enough, my big can of resin had crystallized, but luckily, Fiberglass Supply is just across the airport from me. A quick run over and I had a fresh can, ready for the weekend.

They say a perfect fillet should be the radius of a tongue depressor. I ran out but discovered a quarter was also perfect. 




The next morning I refreshed my fiberglassing skills and sealed the bulkhead in with 2 layers of glass: a 1" strip over the fillet, followed by a 2" strip over everything. 



Nothing secret, just keeping the avionics from getting accidentally glassed.



Jim is going to freak when he sees this. Because of some new equipment that would not fit on the old tray, we've pulled the avionics tray he so carefully built and are building another one.



Next steps will be to design and fabricate the new tray, rerun the wiring, and continue working on the new panel. All good...



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