thought you might like that Mike... it's all about the elbow grease at this stage....

would you estimate the surface area to be around 1800 or maybe 1900 squares with the curves, etc....

I am starting side 2 right now......

oaky a few pics on preping the margins of side one...

I found that 220 grit on the block cuts the MBs and resing really well. You want to sand off the MBs to the weave in the overlapping margin areas, you also need to clean up any resin runs, lose threads, clumps of MBs and dry areas of cloth. a little extra attention to detail here can save time in the finial sanding phases.

again just take your time using a point light source to feather the best you can. we really only need about 1/4 of cloth overlap. I usually do a little more around the front turtle deck behing the cowl just to add a little strength.

and I am going to try and adjuct my camera for better focus on the next round of pics - for your viewing pleasures....


about to make another MB dust cloud

Okay, so I've preped side 2 for fiberglass.

Lay out your .6 oz cloth and trim the overhang excess - you can use these scrapes to do your rudder, stabs, elevators and spot repairs later if needed. The work the stab adjuster wire between the weave of the cloth.

I mixed another 50 gram batch of West 105/206. Be sure to mix your resin for at least two mins. I hit mins and continue till it's almost painful and your fingers start cramping - no joke. This time I upped the acetone to 22 grams and it actually seemed better in application and with the microballoons.

What I did here is do the flat fuse side first sarting at the fin post. Brush on the reduced resin with that 2 1/2 brush. Gently pulling out wrinkes and wetting the cloth. Work your way out to the cowl.

Once that's done then do the turtle decks by brushing outwards from the center. continue all the way around the airframe. You want about an 1/2" over lap at the cowl and all the margins from side one.

once you have the resin brushed out, take a second to check it out and make sure you don't have any dry spots. Then pick up that handy 2" foam roller. I always use a fresh foam roller. you can clean these in acetone but I think it loses some of it's absorbency. Start rolling out the flat sides, then just like you did with the brush roll out the turtle decks from the center out. You will notice the resin will level out, and you will be able to see the weave in the reflection. Keep wiping the roller on a paper towel. You will also notice tiny bubbles of resin popping up between the weave, I guess this is a process of the curing, I don't really know I'm not a chemist but you see tiny bubbles in my photos. You will notice a dull shine and be able to see the weave.


Also I did side two of my rudder in the same method.

yes the bubbles are the resin outgassing. That's what the roller is for (ALWAYS a fresh one).

if you walk away and don't roll it, the resin will bubble up and your glass will pooch out, then when you sand, all of those spots go down to bare wood....ungood.

Rolling it makes a LOT less work on the back end because you don't have to reglass the wood spots, and also gets rid of the extra weight.

I do a couple of things differently than Dean, but it's just details.

First, I mix my resin and acetone 50/50. I have no idea why people are so reluctant to do this, but they are it seems.

I also start at the rear adjuster and work out both ways. but I think I like Dean's way better for one reason: as the acetone evaporates, the mixture thickens. I'd much rather it thicken toward the nose than the tail.

I wait a few hours from laying the glass down to rub in the micro baloons. I haven't had much luck with rubbing them immediately, I always seem to move the glass for some reason. Then I have to roll it back down and that's messy...but, I may try it again because I can see where you could get better penetration and sticking of the micro baloons.

I also make sure that after the glass cures, I trim out everything..all holes, pics, everything...and just tape the adjusters and pins. Then every step I take I retape the wing tube and stab tube holes to make certain nothing builds up there. If you leave the glass in place, you tend to get a lot of bleed through into the socket which makes a nasty mess when it's time for assembly...like just a small bit of overspray and your stab tube won't go in the hole....then you have to screw with it for hours and pray you don't break your shiny new plane. It's also easier to keep all of this sanded flat and reduce build up during the priming and painting process.

As I said just details, otherwise dead on the way I have done it for years and it makes this job easy (Still a lot of sanding, but not difficult).

-Mike

Now I am ready for the micro balloons, again just take handfuls and sprinkel the MBs all along the surface. Then with the palm of your hand just start rubbing in in circles. When I get started I use both hands. You don't want to use gloves here. You want to be able to feel the tack of the resin, once your area is properly covered in MBs, you hand will glide over the surface (I guess that's wy they call me handglider ), just cover the entire surface with your micro balloons and yer done. Here is the finished fuse and rudder. I still have to do the TE of the rudder - I have some nice 3 oz cloth I will run up the back side there tomorrow. I plan on letting the fuse get a full 48 hour cure time here before I start the next stage of sanding and surface prep. This is a critical stage in achieving "plate flatness" and requires a good hard cure.

Hey Mike, if you where here you would see how smooth the microballoons are when I apply them right after rolling out the resin. I've done 4 planes like this now and the results seem pretty fantastic. I also think that applying the MBs early helps absorb any excess resin and can be remove by sanding...

I thnk everybody will develop his or her's own techniques. As I have from my mentors, yourself, the late great Jim Ivey and Bryan Hebert.

The bottom line is one needs to find his way and stick to it.

Here are the products and tools I have used so far in the glassing process.

Yea that trusty old scale takes center stage.

So things are curing now, time to sit back and reflect I guess



Okay here is my first sidebar article in a while.

I am going to walk you guys through my "wax paper" method of nomex/carbon/fiberglass layup to produce a nomex composite panel. These panel are great for making servo and equipment trays.

I stumbled across this meathod and it rather surprised Mike ande Melissa on how well it work and how lite my panels turn out.

What you need is:

two pieces of glass slightly oversized for the panel your about to make

nomex core material - 1/4 or 1/8" thickness

carbon cloth - I use 2 oz cloth here

fiberglass cloth - 3 oz here

west systems 105/206 resin

and regular old wax paper

We when doing this used methanol ,not acetone, to cut the resin.
Which is best and why.

Brian

I am using two pieces of glass here about 12 x 30".


Cut your nomex to about the size of the glass.

lay out 2 pieces of wax paper a little larger than the glass.

Cut your fiberglass cloth and carbon cloth to about the size of your nomex - I am doing fiberglass on one side and carbon on the other - you could do fiberglass on both sides for a less expensive layup and for our use it's plenty strong - the carbon gives it a little extra bling to the inside of your fuse.

for this size layup I mixed up another 50 gram batch of west systems - with no reduction here.

pour about half of that batch of resin out on the fiberglass cloth, with the foam roller, wet the cloth and spread the resin. the fiberglass will take some rolling to get it wetted. It's got a tight weave - just keep working it.

now pour the rest of the resin on the carbon cloth, your roller is good and soaked now with resin - you will find it's really easy to wet out the carbon.. The deal with the carbon is it's really easy to stretch and distort the weave of the cloth. once you've wetted it out. pull the weave straight and make sure it's laying flat on the wax paper on top of the glass.

take your nomex core and position it ontop of the carbon cloth.

peel your fiberglass cloth off the wax paper and place it ontop of the nomex.

place the wet side of the wax paper that was with the fiberglass back on top of the fiberglass layer.

take a second to pull everything straight.

place the second peice of glass ontop of the stack, contiuning to straighten out the cloths, core paper and glass.

flip the stack over and look at the carbon layer making sure it's straight with now wrinkles.

place about 75 lbs on top of the stack and set it aside.

your done for a good 24 hour cure cycle. once cure peel the paper and you will have a composite panel ready for use.

Acetone has no inherent moisture. It evaporates almost totally.

Anything that has a water base is BAD for epoxy. (not positive about methanol). It screws with the curing and the resin doesn't cure as hard and sandable. I have used denatured alcohol with decent results as well, but nothing like acetone. It is the best I have ever found that leaves a hard sandable cure.

Back to it yes everyone has thier own methods and everybody has theories. The one constant I have found as far as overall weight reduction is thinning the resin....that one is a must on a plane this size. Whatever the weight ends up being with thinned resin, you can add at least 60% more (if you're GOOD) and usually a lot more if you DON'T thin it. Plus it tends to set too fast not leaving enough working time, getting thicker which just compounds the problem even more...like a snowball effect.

If you cut it somewhere bewteen Dean's number and mine (it's probably very close as acetone doesn't weigh nearly as much as resin) that alone makes a world of difference, and the pot life of the mixture is hours, not minutes. However since it evaporates, it doesn't really effect the final cure time. Although I use the fast set hardener, using the 206 MAY require a little more cure time before sanding. You'll know. If you sand it and it's hard to sand, it's not ready. If it just comes off like fine powder, it's cured enough.

-Mike

Edit: oops sorry Dean

so here is the panel in the press.

I have also done this with the paste mold release and just found that to be a big mess. The wax paper has just peeled away and there is not a lot of clean up.

My reduction was at 50g resin to 22g acetone - since the resin is way heavier than the acetone - it's even more than a 50% reduction by volume.

You do get a lot of evaporation, I was thinking about that, and that is why I started brushing it on from the fin to the nose as Mike observed. sometime there is a method to my madness - one of the things I thought about at 4 am one morning in bed.....

Okay all, just for grins I just put the untrimmed and sanded airframe on the scales. ( Mike doesn't like when I give these intermediate weights as they don't reflect the finished weight on that stage of the finish, but they are fun and it's just for grins )

So far the complete (but untrimmed and un-sanded) fiberglassed base has added 3.8 oz to the airframe and I know I can sand off at least .8 oz and most likely a lot more.

and believe me I will be very happy if my base finishes out at less than 3 oz - My ball park was 4 oz but I bet I can beat 3 oz...

yee-haw !!!!

cheers all!

the Packers are about to start - GO PACKERS !!!!!!!

I've tried the denatured alcohol but the result was a bit rubbery.

Alcohol based products absorb water from the air. So I am guessing it might not be the best choice.

Whatever you use just stick to what works. It's all about ones own method....

A great builder/painter once told me - if your not screwing up, experimenting, pushing the envelop, your not growing, your not learning, your not achieving perfection....

try everything but only settle on what works best for yourself....


- snatch the pebble grasshopper -

Yea I don't like the 205 faster hardener, seems like it make me hurry too much, the 206 is what works better for me.

What Mike and I are suggesting here works for us. You need to decide on what products and methods work well for you. Although you can follow mine or Mikes steps to a tee and get excellent results.

So what's next - surface prep and primer base.

I will block sand the MBs and fiberglass base with starting with 150, working thru 220 finishing with 320.

I will be using PPG K-36 available in small quantities from Radio South or at your local paint store in Qts. The first coat will be rolled on with my handly 2" foam roller, I will also roll the chin and cowl after an application of BVM pin hole filler.

Rolling the primer is a great to push the primer into any pinholes....

That will be block sanded off and a second coat will be sprayed at a 50% reduction.

So stay tuned it will be a couple days before those steps will my base cures good and hard.....

In the mean time here is a sneak peak of what's ahead - (this is a shot of the red plane after the first coat of primer was almost completely blocked)





GO PACKERS !!!!!!

I did the wax-paper way while constructing CF-FG panel to enforce firewall with. Same method as handgliger's. Quite sucessful.

The beauty of this method is that you have absolute control over the thickness of the pannel, the material used and size.

To keep the total weight down, I tried to squeeze as much as epoxy out for each added layer. The panel is sandwiched between two flat surface (bookshelf panels from Home Depot) and then the weight is added.

Now is a good time to start thinking about painting and trim schemes.

Here are a couple pics of the ill fated Red Plane that I did last summer. It started with a primed plane and a drawing. I'll provide a link to my PDF profile drawings once I dig them up.

A lot has been said about this plane including the choice of Candy Apple Red - I was originally contracted to paint this plane for a buyer that backed out at the last moment. Originally everybody loved the thought of a candy apple red plane. The lesson WE all learned (not just me) was how dark the plane gets in the air. I still have about $200 worth of this paint - it's part of the PPG Vibrance line of paints, it's the original high end Candy Apple Paint - it a 3- stage. I'll be using that paint along with the Vibrance Candy Yellow (Vibrance Yella) paint (about $350/pint) on this plane. I also have the complete catalog of SEM candies coming as well. This will all be cleared under PPG 2002 Clear.

You can see in the knife edge shot how dark the candy red gets on the shadowed side.

As I am developing the scheme I will share some sneak peaks of what I am designing for this plane, I am going to paint most of the graphics and type using my spray masks.

I am leaning towards another "Fire Dragon" scheme. With airbrushing and illustrative techniques...

Okay I found my profile drawings - I've got the side profile of the VF3 and a top view of the V2 - which is close enough for a scheme. You should be able to print these and have at it with colored markers, pencils, crayons or my favorite - finger paints

http://dragonfirecustoms.com/BMVF3-side_DF07.pdf

http://dragonfirecustoms.com/BMV2.2_topview-DF06.pdf

have fun with these

I have the Movie "Eragon - The Dragon Rider" I am working up a dragon rider scheme. so stay tuned......

That candy apple red is GORGEOUS (I have a scrap of it right here LOL) I mean it looks like it's 3 feet deep and soaking wet. You guys should have seen it when we finally polished it out about 15 minutes before it died.....

But, that plane definitely taught me a lesson in contrast and visibility. All bright colors and that's not good; all dark colors and that's not good either. A nice combination of both with some large breaks seems to be the most visible. I don't think the actual colors themselves matter as much; it mostly turns black and white over the poles anyway (especially in overcast conditions). Now Dean's new 2.2 is pretty darned trick....that is one that needs to be seen in person as pictures will never do that plane justice.

if you want to see the best example of "visible", look at Arch's orange VF3....that one you can see at midnight!

The whole color vs contrast issue has me scratching my head....

-M

Here is the plane Mike did for Arch. You guys all seen it at last years nats too.