Dude....throw a towel on those beautiful AL skins. Ha haha
May I borrow your form when your done!
I installed a new -7 tail with a -8 rudder on my -6.........
The store bought fairing was not a good fit. I did what you are doing.
You will be very happy and proud of your work!
Looking ahead....if you curve the layup around the HS leading edge, the fit will be so good, you only have to install screws in the trailing edge so it appears to be a screwless install.
Great pictures.......I made way more of a mess!
I see some waves there in the plaster. That will require filling - extra work and extra weight. Get a flexible sanding block of some kind and drag it at 45 deg each way to highlight the high spots. Much easier to fix in the plaster than in the final fairing. A true surface is more important than a smooth surface since this is a male mold. I know this is a ton of work to get to this stage, I've done it. That extra 2% at the end makes all the difference.
Will you coat the plaster with anything?
Nicely done! Interested in the final product.
Very nice! We attached the Vans part to the other 7 and like you said the fit was horrible. I wonder if I should just delete the part and save the money on my fuselage order... your looks much better even before sanding. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing!
Hey Jereme, I suggest you pull a mold off of it after you have completed it.
I would be more than happy to help you do that. That way I can get a better product for my plane!
That looks like nice work!
Alright! Are you making me one also? Looks like you are having way to much fun Good Job!
May the force be with you Jereme!
Kent glad to hear from you again man! I was just thinking a couple of days ago that I should text you and tell you to get your butt in the garage.
I just finished a marathon run of two films and part of a TV show and am happily unemployed as of yesterday. I have a short trip to get behind me then I am full steam ahead Jereme!
Great work brother!
Looks Great! As a fellow 7A slider builder, I can highly recommend the Super Tracks- and you are at a great stage to add them. Makes access to the baggage compartment so much better- night and day better.
Not to spend your money or time- but something to consider.
Wow! Those side skirts fit awesome. Mine do not fit that snug to the side skin, despite all my efforts to remedy. I will have to work mine a bit more, there is a twist in the sidebar that under that compound bend was beyond effort to take out. So you think there was no way to do AL on the back Jereme?
How many layers are you applying to that rear area?
Looks Great! My side skirts were a nice tight fit too, but I wasted far too much time trying to get the rear ones to fit well. I even purchased a cheap english wheel thinking I could do some magic (Jesse James style). Should have done glass from the start.
Your build looks fantastic! That is going to be a heck of and RV!
Interesting Kent, mine required very little tweaking on the sides. There is no way in heck I would even attempt to do metal on the rear. I'm sure it would be way harder to do with the Sika method as well since there is a fair amount of preload in the metal by the sounds of it. I know a guy here that did metal on his -6A and he described the torture it was to accomplish it. I went with four plies of 8.9 oz 8-harness satin found here.
Thanks for the compliments Dan! Ya doing it in metal never even crossed my mind. The only thing I used the metal for was a template to cut the glass haha. So did you end up going with glass in the end if I understand correct?
Jereme! you will be flying in no time! Great work all around.
Doing the glass as we speak Well, not this very second but that is what I'm working on.
I ordered the new mount/nose gear and this is one of the bigger projects that I've been avoiding. I think by the time it gets here that will hopefully be one of the last remaining projects before she heads off to paint.
How much glass will I need to do the rear skirt do you think Jereme?
What type if resin and such are you using? I am interested in getting it in the shop for later.
I use West System epoxy. Get it from here. Looks like there is a couple of stores in the Portland area too. I got mine from Merrit supply when I ordered Sika only to find out the next day that West Marine has free shipping.
You want the 105 resin and the 206 hardner (I bought the gal. size for 105 and 27 oz. for 206) The 206 resin has to be used in temps above 60. I also have the pumps that you can get but I don't really use them other than to dispense as they are not accurate. I weigh everything in a 5 to 1 ratio.
Copy that. Thanks for the info! I need to get some flox I guess which is from Spruce I would imagine...
You want the 105 resin and the 206 hardner (I bought the gal. size for 105 and 27 oz. for 206) The 206 resin has to be used in temps above 60. I also have the pumps that you can get but I don't really use them other than to dispense as they are not accurate. I weigh everything in a 5 to 1 ratio.
7 ounces of hardener is $22 shipped on eBay.
Back many years ago I was a model maker for industrial design and I still have my vacuum pump and scales...glad I kept them.
Not much experience with glass I will admit. Do I need to roll out the extra resin between a plastic sheet before applying the glass? I saw someone on here doing that. I will have to brush up on this stuff before I get in to it...
If you were building a Lancair or VariEze -- an all-glass plane -- yes, you should be concerned with the proper ratio of glass to resin. However, there are not very many glass components on an RV, and none are structural (maybe the cowl, but that comes from Vans pre-molded from a pro shop), so a little extra resin won't hurt much in weight or strength. It is good practice to wet out the glass and squeeze off any grossly extra resin; that's just wasted weight. You can pre-wet the glass on plastic before applying, or paint the resin on and stipple it into the weave, depending on the application.
Best tip: read every post by DanH on this forum; you'll learn a ton! (and might get a free plenum out of the deal ;-)
And, experiment! It's easy to do, relatively cheap and fast. After reading and experimenting, I was able to totally crush the mis-fit of my IO-360 snorkel. See http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=1340414&postcount=54. It was very educational and recreational (and fun!)
So I got all that ordered and on its way. Started back with the fuel lines and bulkhead fittings and going along again but still ready to be done with this part...Return lines are a bit of challenge.
The 5:1 ratio is by volume; by weight it's 5.36:1 for the 206 slow hardener and 5:19:1 for the 205 Fast hardener ... though the data sheet calls out a large range around these for an acceptable mix (5:1 is in the middle of the range). I use a 0.1g scale to measure mine as well; the pumps are not particularly accurate. I never had a batch not cure rock hard doing it this way.
If you were building a Lancair or VariEze -- an all-glass plane -- yes, you should be concerned with the proper ratio of glass to resin. However, there are not very many glass components on an RV, and none are structural (maybe the cowl, but that comes from Vans pre-molded from a pro shop), so a little extra resin won't hurt much in weight or strength. It is good practice to wet out the glass and squeeze off any grossly extra resin; that's just wasted weight. You can pre-wet the glass on plastic before applying, or paint the resin on and stipple it into the weave, depending on the application.
Best tip: read every post by DanH on this forum; you'll learn a ton! (and might get a free plenum out of the deal ;-)
And, experiment! It's easy to do, relatively cheap and fast. After reading and experimenting, I was able to totally crush the mis-fit of my IO-360 snorkel. See http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=1340414&postcount=54. It was very educational and recreational (and fun!)