March 9th, 2008 - Breaking the Seal on a New Chapter

Breaking the seal on a new chapter is almost as fun as finishing a previous chapter. Not quite... but almost. I have been on a tear lately, getting things done on The Experimental Airplane Project and since curing means progress and I didn't have anything else that I could layup or work on since the plane is upside down right now while the landing brake cures, I decided to break the seal on this chapter and do the reinforcing layups on the nose-gear. I actually don't have all of the the parts for this chapter, but the nose-gear was purchased with the main gear and a bit of reading ahead told me that you had to reinforce it similar to the mains so off we go.

We get started by verifying the dimensions of the landing gear and then findng the centerline (below left). Since I had a bunch of 3" BID tapes precut and this requires a 2.75" wide strip of BID I ddn't even have to cut cloth (except to length, which took about 2 seconds). I scuffed up the gear leg per plans, brushed on a bit of epoxy and laid on the tape starting at the middle, making sure that things were centered so that I had the coverage I wanted on both sides. Then starting at the middle again, I brushed and stippled my way down the gear. That completed, I peel-plied the leg for a smooth finish.... Everyone loves a smooth leg :-D !

OH ! Yeah... I was then inspected and approved by the "New Inspector" (Below Right) Man that DAR gets younger all the time !

Next week, I'll flip it over and repeat the process on the other side. After that you'll probably wait a whild for more progress on this chapter. I have to go back and get the canard installed after I complete the gear installation, landing brake installation and brake-line installation.

March 16, 2008 

No surprise here either... I flipped it over, and did the same thing on the other side. It took about 30Mins including cutting cloth and doing the peel ply.