Originally Posted by Stuart annat

Have you logged how many hours you've spent working on the project sofar?
Nice to see some part emerging

No typically i dont.. but doing some realistic guesstimates, probably somewhere around the 3500-4000 hour mark...

So I decided to fast track and get a wing mold half completed...

So after a trip to home depot to pickup a piece of melamine, the wing out was traced onto it:


Then the outline was cutout using a jigsaw:


and the wing test fit in place. The fit was very tight, so clay was used in a few of the looser area's b/c i've got a headache and didn't feel like dealing with body filler fumes:


I then waxed the top and bottom of the wing. Then placed in into the parting plane board. built up the trailing edge parting plane, and then put the clay into the looser area's (hot glue was used to hold the wing in the correct position). Then the locating keys were put down (19 total) then the parting planes and keys were all waxed, the wing is now ready to have PVA sprayed onto it.


Since i'm not due into work for recurrency till after lunch, I plan to get this wing half molded tonight. And then I'll remove it, trim the flanges and wax the flanges sometime this week in prep for the other half to be molded this weekend. Then progress will come to a half in order to finish packing and to get ready for the move after thanksgiving.

While waiting for the PVA to dry, I did a bit of work.

First up was cutting all the 20 layers of cloth for both halves of the wing mold. I had just enough 6oz cloth left over to do a wing mold, but don't have enough to do any other molds. I do have enough to layup a canopy frame though So i'll have to put in an order for some more cloth:


Then I popped the 2nd exhaust nozzle out of the mold:


Then I had to do a mock-up on the fuselage plug. Looks better with 2 nozzles, and I think these will be great candidates for some Hot-section detail work

well.. 10 hours after beginning to work on the wing parting planes, and waxing, etc... The top half of the right wing panel is now completely laid up. Their is 150oz or near-about of glass cloth on just the top half. It also took about 1/3 of a gallon of epoxy as well.. Hopefully my guess of about 5 gallons of resin for the fuselage is accurate.




Also did a bit more filling on the nose cone flange. Its now built up sufficiently to where its time to start sanding it back down to shape. the body filler has a wavy appearance where the joining tape is on the inside of the fuselage. the flanged will be sanded down to remove that wave and to allow the nose cone a slightly loose fit.

Fine work - as always

BJ

Hi invertmast, I'm also scratchbuilding but have very limited experience in composites which I'll need to make some bits.

Looking & learning! - John.

Alright I'm back with a useable shop, so 2 quick shots of what the "new" shop looks like:



First order of business in the new shop was to get the 2nd wing panel in the parting planes so it is ready to be molded once my 6oz glass arrives:


Then the Nose cone flange was sanded down to get a proper fit of the nose cone:


Then the nose cone test fit, still a little bit of sanding left to go:


Then the bottom portion of the canopy frame mold was trimmed to shape. Once i wash the PVA off, i'll lay up a canopy frame. I'm also going to get the vacuum form for the canopy finished up so I can get it and the windscreen sent off to the formers:

I can see some mighty long hours in your new 'shop'

Lookin good (both plane and shop)...

BJ

Haven't checked this thread in a while. Looking good man. I commend you on your persistence! I don;t know how you do it. I get the itch to fly my projects and hate spending too much time on them. Keep going!

Thanks brian. The only thing keeping me going, is that everytime i get one of these molds done, im jjust one step closer to getting an airframe laid up and flying. Im going to get the fuse finish prepped this week so i can start building up parting planes so it can be molded asap. I am getting really excited as the end is drawing near.

I think we're all getting excited mate.

This will be one helluva Bird when it Maidens...

Hang in there - we're all watching and hoping...

BJ

Yeah I hear ya! Pulling a couple parts out will keep you going too. Makes it all worthwhile. The nosecone came out great! Are you planning on putting any type of structure around parts like the eing, stab, vert fin, etc? I have been advised to do so because they are thinner molds and would be prone to twisting over time.

Originally Posted by invertmast

Thanks brian. The only thing keeping me going, is that everytime i get one of these molds done, im jjust one step closer to getting an airframe laid up and flying. Im going to get the fuse finish prepped this week so i can start building up parting planes so it can be molded asap. I am getting really excited as the end is drawing near.

Originally Posted by Tumbler

Yeah I hear ya! Pulling a couple parts out will keep you going too. Makes it all worthwhile. The nosecone came out great! Are you planning on putting any type of structure around parts like the eing, stab, vert fin, etc? I have been advised to do so because they are thinner molds and would be prone to twisting over time.

For the molds that i cant fit in a "sock" style vacuum bag, ill put some additional support structure on those, but for items like the stabs, rudder, etc, i am going to leave them as is.

What are you going to use for your support structure? Im thinking 1/4" mdf glued into position with west Six-ten

I am vacuum bagging my stab and wing so I need support as you mentioned. I am going to line the bottom perimeter with something like 1/4( cheap thin ply I bought. might even be 3/16) ply on edge that will also act like a table for the mold to sit in and keep from rolling around. Then I'll add the same ply diagonally back and forth across the mold to give it some torsional strength.

Originally Posted by invertmast

For the molds that i cant fit in a "sock" style vacuum bag, ill put some additional support structure on those, but for items like the stabs, rudder, etc, i am going to leave them as is.

What are you going to use for your support structure? Im thinking 1/4" mdf glued into position with west Six-ten

Thats the same method i plan to use. Ive got some epoxy tooling dough that i plan to use for the flap structure, but for the wings, fuse and vert. Stabs, thin ply is what i will use. Since the rudder, stabs, canopy, etc will all go in a "sock" bag, i wont bother with any structure on them.