I glued the fourth and final layer on one of the lower cap strips tonight. This is another one of those processes that requires a deceivingly large amount of epoxy; it took me 3 batches of glue to complete this lamination.
I will need to go to Home Depot tomorrow to buy some more clamps as these laminations are starting to get really long at 2100mm, 3835mm, and 3837mm.
Number of hours: 0.7
Total hours: 180.8
I cleaned up one of my previous laminations for one of the lower spar caps tonight with my block plane. Then I glued another layer to it. I am sorry that these pictures all look really similar, it is monotonous for me too LOL.
Last night's EAA meeting was fun, I ended up visiting two hangars afterward so it was a late night.
Number of hours: 0.5
Total hours: 180.1
Short and sweet tonight, I got one more set of laminates glued together before the EAA meeting tonight.
Number of hours: 0.3
Total hours: 179.6
I finally planed the wood from my most recent Aircraft Spruce order this afternoon. My kids enjoyed playing outside in the snow while I did my job. After I finished planing the wood I brought it all back down to the workshop. The next thing I decided to do was to cut down all of the spar cap strips for both of the main wings. I had to do some math to figure out the length of the bottom cap strip as it is not on the drawing. It ends up being 1.16mm longer than the top cap strip. I ended my day by gluing 2 of the 4 laminate layers together for one of the lower cap strips. I was hoping to do 3 of the 4 but I didn't mix enough epoxy. This ended up being a blessing in disguise because I probably wouldn't have been able to keep the 3 pieces together and flat while the epoxy cured. I figure that this means it will take me 2 more sessions to finish up this cap strip. This works out to be 14 total sessions to make the 4 cap strips. That means I will be working on these things for a while unless I can figure out a way to work on more than one cap strip at a time; my small workshop is the limiting factor in this situation.
Number of hours: 1.5
Total hours: 178.0
Well, I didn't get to go on that cross country. The weather was freezing rain and I had a 102* fever that weekend. I am slowly getting back to full health. It seems as if the kids are trying to kill me this year with all of the crud that they have brought home from school.
I broke down and purchased a benchtop bandsaw yesterday that I found on Craigslist. Tonight I put it to work cutting 70' of 1/2" square stock into trailing edge. Now I know you purists out there will complain that I didn't use 10mm stock for this job to which I say, give me a break. It sucks bad enough cutting this stuff from 1/2". I am not going through the hassle of planing it then cutting it. The weight penalty is negligible. I might hate cutting trailing edge as much as building spars. Oh well, enough complaining. I decided to order the correct length of spar caps for the canard, so hopefully I will see them in two weeks or so. The spring steel for the front fork will be done at the blacksmith sometime next week from the sounds of things. My friends at the laser shop haven't snuck me into their schedule yet. I hope that they can get me the parts before the next EAA meeting as I would like to bring the parts and beg for someone with 4130 welding experience to finish them for me. The avionics are still in process at my brother-in-law's house. I haven't been bothering him about it because I'm not in a hurry for them yet. I hope that this is a satisfactory update, weather and health have really sapped all of my ambition over the past few weeks. I will try to plane down the rest of my material this weekend and I would like to start building the canard and main wing spars but I don't want to push it.
Number of hours: 0.7
Total hours: 176.5
I received my shipment from Aircraft Spruce today and spent part of the evening checking things to the packing slip. Then I started to match the stock to the parts that need to be built. I discovered that I didn't order full length material for the canard spar caps. This means that I will have to scarf the two outer spar caps on the canard. This isn't the end of the world its just disappointing. I expect to cut and glue the scarf joints tomorrow. I then moved on to cleaning the workshop and moved the fuselage upstairs to our front room so I have more room to build the canard. My wife is somewhat upset with me over this decision, but I think she understands and is giving me some good natured ribbing saying that she will use it as a planter or let the kids take it outside to use as a sled.
I flew for another 1 hour of dual instruction and 1.2 hours solo on Friday. It was a big deal to me to finally leave the airport by myself. It was an even bigger deal to make it back without getting lost! Things started to get chilly so I headed back to the airport a little early. There was a pretty healthy crosswind so I didn't get any landings that I felt good about. I need to go to the pilot shop at Anoka tomorrow so I can purchase a current sectional map for the Twin Cities as I hope to fly my dual cross country on Saturday. It is looking doubtful that I will get to fly as the weather is looking pretty crappy. My logbook now contains 20.2 hours of which 1.7 is solo.
Number of hours: 1.1
Total hours: 175.8
