I had a bit of a disappointment yesterday afternoon when I went back to the aft fuselage plug. When I left it last Thursday, I had filled the space between the vertical fin and the aft fuselage with squirt foam. I intended the foam to be a foundation for the micro that I'd spread on later.
Unfortunately, the squirt foam hadn't cured, and was still just a wet gooey mess. I'd chosen a new water-based latex foam because I wanted something that wouldn't harm the exposed polystyrene core of the vertical fin root. Apparently, it doesn't cure well when applied in large volumes and without lots of ventilation.
Anyhow, I made sort of a recovery by scooping out the mess, packing the area with foam shipping peanuts, and slathering an epoxy/microballoon mix over that. So one side is rough-micro'd, and tonight I'll do the other side.
I've also got the foam cores for the elevator plugs now. While waiting for the microballoon mixture to cure on the fillet, I cut all the layup plies for the elevator, and also made the vacuum bag and prepped the cores and shucks. So tonight I should be able to do the bottom layups on both elevator sections while waiting for the opposite fin fillet to cure.
I decided that I would do the elevator plugs in right and left sections, since that's the way the actual elevators will be installed. My idea is that the elevators will have pintles that will engage gudgeons that are anchored to the top sandwich of the horizontal stabilizer. The engagement on both elevator sections will be achieved by sliding the section outboard. Once engaged, a steel weldment will install between the two elevator sections, preventing them from sliding inboard and disengaging. The weldment will also provide for engagement with the elevator drive in the vertical fin.
Now, on to Riverside!
page updated 24 September 2003 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2003 HP Aircraft, LLC