Chapter 7 - Step 3 - Glassing the Bottom

August 14, 2005
After taking off part of a Friday to finish step 2 of this chapter I was forced to face the big layup of the bottom of the aircraft. I have to admit that I have been putting this off till I was feeling right on. I wanted this layup to be good with no bubbles and no problems and I think the wait paid off, for in large part they finished product met my desires.

Things started with a bit of cleanup and the delicate shaping of that step re-inforcement that I micro'd in place. (left and center) everything seemed in order and the stars and moon appeared aligned according to the mystical Cozy-Building Gods, so I think we're ready for glassing the bottom (below right). WooHoo! Let's do it.

I felt that a bit of help would be in order for this layup. Someone to help me hold and cut cloth, mix micro, make epoxy and keep it coming at a steady pace... hmmm.. someone close by... I know just the person! The Wife!!! (Julie - below left)

Now before I get into this, let me caveat this section by saying that the plans call for completing this layup in 3 hours. In my humble opinion the plans smoke alot of crack when it comes to estimating how long something like this will take. I understand that Burt Rutan and that whole bunch of Big-Brains that first taught us how to pour airplanes out of a bottle are probably better at this than I and my humble airplane-building friends, but... I have a hard time coping with the idea that they are TWICE as fast as me so I reject their time estimates and double them... I plan for 6 hours. I guess that you might make 4 hours with another experienced builders working with you, but not all of us have a brother named Dick Rutan. (NOTE: it took me 5hrs and 50min from start to finish)

Ok... back to what we were doing... Oh yes! The wife! There she is below. Isn't she cute mixing epoxy like that! I love a woman who takes the time to mix up her man some epoxy (and micro). WHEW! So without lying about how long this would take, I began the lesson about how to mix epoxy and micro and what my descriptions of thicknesses meant. She's quick on the uptake and I'm a good teacher so things went well and she never missed a beat. We cut cloth and stacked it aside in the order that it would be applied and we went to town.

Many hours later it was time for the peel ply. I had also decided to use the saran wrap (cling wrap) method of keeping the cloth in the joggles. I wansn't sure which to do first so on the front of the fuselage along F-22 I put on the saran wrap first (below #5) and then applied Peel ply (This seems obvious to you doesn't it) and around the landing gear I put down the peel ply and then saran wrapped the crap out of it (below #8, 9, 10). I HIGLY RECOMEND THIS METHOD. IT REALLY KEEPS THE CLOTH DOWN. DON'T BE CHEAP WITH THE SARAN WRAP (see picture 10 below). USE ALOT OF IT LIKE I DID. I SKIMPED IN ONE AREA AND IT'S THE ONLY AREA I WAS UNHAPPY WITH. Yes I typed that part in bold for a reason
NOTE TO BUILDERS: Put down the peel ply first and then put on the Saran Wrap.
So we trimed it all up, peel-ply'd it all up, and saran wrapped it all up. (see below for quite a number of pictures)

Continued below pictures.

OK So this past Friday was pretty productive. Saturday I lost to a trip to northern Ohio so I was back on the plane Sunday. I pulled off the peel ply and cut off some of the cloth overages that needed to be trimed. I also had a visit from Sean Henderson, a Cozy Plans owner that is planning on starting to build soon. He brought along a friend of his named Dean who is planning on building an RV-10 and he wants to convert him to the dark side I guess. Dean had his son along for the ride and had to leave after about an hour but Sean, our soon to be builder instead of just plans owner, stuck around and we worked on his first layup together. I remember doing this with another local builder when I was just getting started, and it was probably the thing that took the mystery out this whole process and made it much less daunting and more doable. We finished a piece right down to the peel-ply. I answered as many questions as I could and we chatted about airplane stuff. It was a great visit and I hope to see him getting started soon. (Dang! I forgot to take a picture while he was here.)

After sean left I decided to pull the plane off the extra-wide saw horses that it has been sitting on (below left) and turn it over and get it up on the rotiserie. When it was sitting on the ground right there, the desire to sit in it was almost unbearable! I was dying to make airplane noises and maybe even take a nap in there.... Whew. I promised myself that I would wait till the whole tub was done... Back to the rotiserieI have been waiting to do this until the bottom was done and when I started trimming the NACA scoop and it was a reach I realized that there was no longer a reason that I couldn't put the plane on the rotiserie and make this whole process easier.

The rotiserie stands that I have were manufactured by fellow builder (almost flyer - hopefully next summer) Tim Lumpp. They are EXCELLENT and allow the builder to lock the plane in any orientation along the horizontal axis needed.

My only other note on this entry has to do with cups. Yes those things we mix epoxy in. The common suppliers, Wicks and Aircraff Spruce sell a sleve of the 10oz cups for $30. Then they ship them to you and charge you for that. This struck me as the wrong way to go for such a menial item so I looked for all of 3 seconds through my mental files for who I thought might sell the same thing locally and in bulk. GFS (Gordon Food Service - Bulk food supplier) can order anything like this for you and have it there either the next day or 2 days if they don't have it in stock. They are the same cups, same design and everything. I purchased a whole box of the cups (with lids) for ~$50. This is 250 cups and averages to about $8.40 per sleve. They also carry butyl gloves, stir sticks and a variety of other menial but needed stuffs used during the building process. There it is...