Work Session 9/15/2011

This report summarizes work performed on 9/12-15/2011, since work was performed each day this past week in order to be ready to begin covering the RH wing this Saturday afternoon.

What we've done in the past week:

1. Half of our team attended Jerry Stadtmiller's fabric covering workshop at Triple Tree on 9/10/2011. The general consensus was that this was a very worthwhile experience. The gold standard is now his work and when deliberating fabric-related work one asks WWJD - What Would Jerry Do ?
2. Thanks to Chuck Borsuk, Jim Cronin and JP Bernoux, we now own a BD-4 project. A large collection of material, fasteners, and some VERY nice tools are now owned by the BCAC. We're making an inventory and will eventually store everything at the Skunk Works for potential work on this airplane a later date.
3. All foam shaping on the RH wing is complete and the fairings have a single layer of BID fiberglass.
4. A few more components are needed prior to finishing the LH wing, for instance the pitot tube.
5. At the strong recommendation of our TC Jack Phillips, we decided not to pursue lighting for the Skycoupe at this time. This adds complexity, cost and weight that most feel does not justify the occasional use of the aircraft at night. Conduits for navigation light wiring has however been secured in the wings in case we choose to do this at a later time.

The images below show some of our work in the past few days.

The next work session is Saturday, 9/17/2011 after the chapter meeting when we'll begin covering the RH wing and empennage.














RH wing inboard fairing, cured filler ready for sanding.














RH wing inboard fairing, cured filler ready for sanding.


















Sandy Andy Thomson works on outboard fairing, sand, sand, sand














Ain't she pretty? Inboard fairing ready for fiberglass.














Ain't she pretty? Outboard fairing ready for fiberglass.














Inboard fairing covered with a single layer of bidirectional (BID) glass. We managed to use a single piece despite the curvature - no seams !














Outboard fairing covered with fiberglass.














Four Scuffers Scuffing, three glassers glassing, and a partridge in a pear tree!
Konrad, Andy, Nathan and Mike scuff the wooden surfaces in preparation for the final spraying of two-component epoxy varnish.


















Mike McCann cleans a nice carpenter's square ruler, one of many tools that came with the BD-4 project.


















Skunk Workers looking for booty - in the parts that came with the BD-4 project. Looked like kids in a toy shop!

Below - Tucker, the flamingo-chewing wonder dog, takes a breather from his attacks on the vacuum cleaner.