RE: wing halves on trainer
When I "glass" a wing joint, I start out with a large piece of fibergalss cloth (get it at the hobby shop, it is a lighter weave than what you would find at a hardware.) Lay it over the center of the wing and take a good pen to mark your cuts. I personally mark a triangle starting at the leading edge placing a 1" mark on either side if the center joint. I also ensure that I have that same 2" overlap to go around the front of the leading edge. I then make a mark on the cloth at the the inboard side of the aileron ( the closest point to the fuse. (both ailerons). Also mark the overlap for the training edge. Using a straightedge, I make a line connecting the dots. And cut out the pattern. Do the same thing for the underside of the wing, making another triangle. (Make sure you kow which cuts are for the top and bottom). Now comes the fun part. Starting with the BOTTOM traingle, lay it over the bottom of the wing and line up everything. Find an old credit card witha good straight edge, some disposable gloves, and a good mixing cup. Put on your gloves and Mix some 5 minute epoxy (about two to three ozs. (I like the Devcon twin syringle type - the mix is always right) up and now add some rubbing alcohol (usually two to three capfuls) to your epoxy. Mix completely, your mix should have the consistency of maple syrup and be a milky white. This is called "thinning" the epoxy. Spread the mix onto the prepositioned cloth, and start spreading it with the credit card, starting from the middle (over the joint) and move it to the outside edges. Make sure that you also get it in the weave on the leading and trailing edges and get those edges stuck down. You will see bubbles on some parts of the cloth. As the epoxy starts getting tacky, push those down with the spreading card. You will probably have some fraying edges, but don't worry about those yet, just get everything stuck down. Work quickly, you will only have about 2-3 minutes total. Make sure that you get all the cloth stuck to the balsa. Now mix some more epoxy up on start on the top of the wing doing the same procuedure. The leading and training edges will wrap over the bottom edges. Now you see why you start on the bottom side first. Now you also know why you wore those dispoable gloves, Let dry overnight. You can now start to sand the epoxy "smooth". I start with 100 and end with 200 grit. Those frayed edges can now be cleaned up with an X-acto knife. The sanded epoxy should hold Monokote very well. This method adds very little weight to to plane. It will also ensure an extremely strong wing. Some people might think that this is overkill, but I know from experiance (after breaking wings in half racing Q-500) that this works. Its faster to do the procedure that it was to type it, also experiment a little on a piece of balsa sheeting to figure out your particular mix. The epoxy should be just enough to saturate the weave and stick to the underlining balsa. Move excess epoxy off the weave, always pushing the mixture to the outside edges. Good luck.