This weekend I finished readying the outboard wing plug cores for skinning. I assembled the core sections for the left wing, and got the stiffeners embedded in their trenches. I did take a bunch of photos of the process, but then I left the camera up at the shop. I'm scheduling friends and resources to do the layups on the top surfaces of the outboards this coming weekend. We'll get more photos then, and remember to bring the cameara home as well.
One thing I did differently from the inboards is that I also epoxied together the bottom shucks (offcuts) to make a more stable bed for the assembly. Because of their smaller section and chord, the outboards are much more limber in all dimensions, so it's going to take more attention to make sure that they come out straight.
Another thing I'm going to do differently is to do the layups for the bottom surface with the cores the right way up. When it comes to that stage, we'll place the vac bag on the bottom shuck, place the layup on the bag, place the core on the layup, place the top shucks on the cores, close the vac bag, and then weight the assembly to the table. Doing it like that lets me use the most stable and consistent surface (the glued-together bottom shucks) to establish the spanwise, sectional, and torsional alignment.
page updated 16 February 2004 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2004 HP Aircraft, LLC