I'm pretty much done with the horizontal stabilizer plug now. It still needs a gloss finish coat, and one more cycle of smooth prime and sanding, but I'm pretty much gumptioned-out on that part of the project. I've learned that once I start to lose gumption on one aspect of a project, I can still make progress by switching to another aspect.
I've received all of the CNC hotwired foam cores from Flying Foam for the vertical fin, rudder, and aft fuselage plugs. As usual, they are spot-on with the specified dimensions and profiles.
Last night, Steve Smith and I did the fiberglass layups for one side of the vertical fin. We had exactly enough resin for that layup, and no more. I'll get more resin on order.
For these parts, I'm using US Composites 635 thin resin system with the medium-duration hardener. I know nothing about the strength characteristics of this system, nor do I really care, since these are non-structural tooling parts. The system comes highly recommended by some surfboard makers I know, and it's seemed to work fine on the parts I've made so far, and that's good enough for me.
I'm going to do the surface layups on the vertical fin and aft fuselage plugs separately, and then join them together after they're skinned. Then I'll craft the junction fillet by eye using microballoons and finely calibrated sandpaper guesswork. The structural junction between the two will be made with 1" galvanized steel pipe and plumbing Ts.
As I mentioned before, next week and the week after I'll be on vacation at the Standard Class Nationals at Montague. So not much will get done regarding the HP-24 project.
page updated 30 July 2003 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2003 HP Aircraft, LLC