Last week I took Thursday and Friday off as vacation days, and spent both days in the shop sanding and varnishing the spar plugs. Friday night we drove over the hill to Air Sailing for a weekend of soaring. However, except for a test flight on my newly-installed (but hardly new) RICO VAS vario, there wasn't much soaring to be done. So, Saturday night we drove back over the hill. And, Sunday, I sanded the wing spar plug again and brushed on another coat of varnish.
The picture below shows the butt end of the short (left forward/right aft) C-section, and the tip end of the long (right forward, left aft) section. They're both plugged on the same tabletop, and the molds made from these plugs will probably have both sets of depressions on the same mold. I might even have two sets of both depressions done on the same mold, so we can mold up an entire shipset of spar sections in the same pull.
The photo below shows the butt end of the long C-section. After both the short and long C-sections are semi-cured, they'll be bonded back-to-back to form a wing spar with an I-beam section in the inboard areas, and a C-section on the outboard areas.
The photo below shows a moderate closeup of the butt end of the long C-section. The white areas are where I've blended over holes and imperfections with spackle.
Well, that's it for that weekend. I'm going back up to the shop on Tuesday evening, to see about putting on another coat of varnish. But if it looks like it'll be OK without it, I might just leave it as is, and prepare to send it off for molding. In either case, it will be ready for transport to the molding shop on the morning of Saturday 15 June.
The decision about whether or not to actually start transporting it will depend on soaring conditions for the weekend of 15 June. If the weather is good, I'll go over the hill to Air Sailing for some soaring in the HP-11, and transport the spar plug on 21 June. If the weather is bad or iffy, I'll transport the spar plug, and go soaring 21 June.
page updated 10 June 2002 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2002 HP Aircraft, LLC