Vettster

One wing finished.

The first parts have been pulled!!! Yippy:-)

Vettster

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I suspect the wing tips will take a beating, so I added a few formers. Later during the build i will be filling them with expanding foam and then capping them with the 1/4" ply.

Laid up one side of wing.

Vettster

Well everything was going great... Pulled the top of the wing out of its mold, was busy patting myself on the back when it hit me like a brick to the face. Take a look at what I did..lol. Can you see it.. dohhh The pictures are of the top(1-2) and bottom(3)

Enough pulling parts already.. I have a lot of molds to make and that was the plan for the holidays

Vettster

Top of right wing molded and curing.. Starting on fuse next

Vettster

With the help of the air attachment.. the stubborn plug finally came out

Moving onto the fuse. Im using candle wax this time as it does a much better job of filling large gaps and doesn't get pushed thru like the molding clay.

Vettster

Moving right along now. Parting board attached and 1 layer of tooling coat applied though not in pics yet.

Vettster

2 hours to apply tool coat.

Vettster

5 hours later and half a gallon of resin! I started and didn't stop. I dont work that hard at my day job

3 layers of 6oz then 2 layers of 10oz and then 3 more 6oz Which reminds me im out of cloth

Vettster

Wooowhoooo!! The plug came out without tooooooo much of fight. It will of course be cleaned up before setting up for the next step. As you can see..I didn't do a very good job of waxing the parting board as reminants are stuck to the tooling coat. That will be sanded down and covered with package tape. Apart from that little hiccup..I'm very pleased with how it came out

Square Nozzle

My Feedback: (1)

Vettster, how many bottle of Coors does it take to make a fuselage plug? I would have thought you would favor Molsons. By the way, I truly admire your glass work. Fantastic job!

Vettster

HA!! lol not as many as you think. I open one when I start and never finish it for hours. Thats alcohol abuse I guess

I used to drink Molson Canadian.. But now I drink Lakeport which was bought by Labatts a few years back.

Thanks John.. Im really looking forward to pulling some parts and seeing this thing come together.

Vettster

OK..Time to change it up. Since I have no Tooling Cloth.. I'm going to pull a few canopies. Not for the WetJet though.... This is for the ripmax xcalibur. I made a custom version 6 months ago and no one was interested..And now in the last 2-3 weeks I've had 4 people request one. Thats the way the ball bounces I guess lol

The Silver Canopy is the stock version and the all Black is my Super Sport vrs

Vettster

Well this little speed bump is almost finished.. took about 6 hrs. I'll pop it out soon. If you want me to make you a SuperSport canopy for your Ripmax Excalibur, just let me know.. I can make you a kit for $50 US...Or $75 built and primed

Vettster

Well Im back at her! Yaaahhh.

The canopy ordeal was a mistake.. I spent way to much time working on them for to little money. I'll do them again when I have more time but not while im working on this plane.

Not much to show today.. Just cleaning up the fuse mold. Lots of attention needed Some areas around the spars were sub par. As for the rest you can see what im doing to get the mold a shinny as possible. The nose area has been polished to 6000 grit(good enough) and if you compare it to the back lol.

Square Nozzle

My Feedback: (1)

"6000" grit? Did I read that right? That's like rubbing it with a beach towel. I didn't even know that 6000 was available. Still love your work. You are truly a master. Gotta ask, is molding your occupation?

Vettster

Hah! Lol. I'm a welder. I rebuild and work with TBM's. But thanks! That's the best compliment I've received yet:-)

Yes 6000 feels like your not doing anything..But you'd be surprised. The 12,000 grit is mind over matter I think. Lol

Vettster

Moving right along.... Preparing the hatchs in-between the 6 coats of wax needed. For this I will use gelcoat,6oz,CF6oz

Vettster

The hatches came out great! No air bubbles and smooth. I will let em cure a bit more and then trim them to shape.

Vettster

Took it real easy this weekend.. Finishing off a Canopy for an Xcalibur customer in Cali and just piddling around with the WetJet.

Hatchs trimmed.. Making formers for them now. no biggy

Vettster

So here we have the plug all cleaned up and returned to the mold. Even though I made the plug with angles that were less than 90*.. I am still afraid that with all the sharp corners and near straight walls, that the plug will not want to let go of the mold. So for the bottom portion of the mold.. there will be a left and right side. This will guarantee an easier release. For the layup of the part, the bottom molds will be bolted together as one, so there will be a top and bottom. So simple

Vettster

I cut up some cardboard to get the shape and then transferred it to the particleboard. From there you can fine tune it.. but it doesn't have to be perfect because you will fill the gaps with modeling clay anyhow. The blue foam blocks were hot glued down to hold the parting board in place.

Vettster

Tooling coat and first layer down. The beauty of epoxy is there is no time limit as with Poly. You can walk away for days after it has cured and then add other layers. I have since added 7 more layers. If you do this with poly the layers will not stick to each other

Vettster

Removed the parting board and cleaned up the other side. Going to do top of the other wing too.

Vettster

FYI.. I intend to just build one kit at a time and contact each person that has shown interest in this plane from the start of this blog. If they have changed their mind or are not ready financially.. I will move onto the next. Please keep in mind I am a one man outfit working in my garage with a full time job, so these kits will not be popping out like Durafly kits at HobbyKing

Vettster

Started on the wing... and then ran out of resin

Photo of my dad finishing up his L-4 Christmas present. Looks great