11/01/2012
Back home from sea again and it's time to start the tail.
The horizontal stab and elevators were originally built by someone else. I was not very happy with these, the foam work was all full of gaps and dents, and the accuracy was very poor in there frame alignments, so i stripped them all down to start over, redressed all the timber, removed all the old glue,
set up some stands and got started
Spars and elevator ribs laid on the stands ready for glue.
elevator ribs aligned and glued.
Now for the horizontal stab.
placed the center ribs on the forward and rear spars sat these on the stands, and after a couple of coffee's and a lot of swear words and a few wooden wedges finally managed to get things level for glue.
The other side tip is the same.
Time to get foamy with it.
Ya gotta love that 2 pack foam!!
Cut it, chamfer it, tape it, pour it, done!
Then sand it! Beautiful, except those damn trailing edges, too thin!
Nearly there. just have to finish shaping the tips off and add some fill between the the stab spar and elevator spar. the h/stab is being built the same as Troy Petteway's with an extra 6 inches added to the tips and 4 inches cut from the outboard end of the elevators.
Damn it!!!!!
Be glad when I can get the glass on it!!
Had to remove the last vertical frame member as it was fitted wrong, it was glued square to the skin and frame then shaped to the matching angle of the fwd spar making it to thin so the plating would not fit the spar, new members were made to the matching thickness of the fwd spar and one face angled to suite keeping the correct thickness, By the way, the fwd spar rear plate I found would be a lot easier to fit if it were fitted loosely in the aft bay before gluing in the upright members or when gluing the tail post in, it was that tight to get in place that I thought i was going to punch a hole through the skin.
7/2/2012 Back home from sea again and back into building again. Finally have the stab and elevators glassed, you can see where I laid a 2" strip of carbon fiber along the trailing edge to stiffen it up, then the glass went on and using a couple of lengths of ally angle clamped to the trailing edges to keep it true and straight until cured .
Then using west systems 410 microlite filler to start leveling out the surfaces and then start lots of sanding, something I made for sanding was to cut a plate of 4mm thick glass the same size as a full sheet of 240 grit paper and then glue a block of wood to the backside for a handle this gave me a perfect flat surface finish ready for priming.
And it's amazing to think that how good a job you try to do with the foam and glassing to how much filler you still need to put in to get that flat surface!!
Then using west systems 410 microlite filler to start leveling out the surfaces and then start lots of sanding, something I made for sanding was to cut a plate of 4mm thick glass the same size as a full sheet of 240 grit paper and then glue a block of wood to the backside for a handle this gave me a perfect flat surface finish ready for priming.
And it's amazing to think that how good a job you try to do with the foam and glassing to how much filler you still need to put in to get that flat surface!!
