Section: 12
Hours: 5

More fun (not) with fiberglass today.

The bottom rudder fairing on the RV-14 must be cut down to avoid hitting the tail wheel. The resulting hole must then be filled in with a fiberglass skin. I rough cut out the hole using the template provided in the manual and then used the dremel drum sander and several sanding  blocks to get the final bevel.

I had some balsa sandwich panel left over from making the h-stab tip ends so I shaped it to fill the hole. Here it is during the dry fit before layup.

 I roughed up the inside of the fairing around the hole to help ensure a good bond of the reinforcment fiberglass layer.

Here is the final layup of 2 layers of 9 oz. BID fiberglass. I applied a paste of flox thickened resin around the edges before applying the cloth.

Here's what the outside looks like after the layup. I also bonded the balsa sandwich bulkheads to the h-stab tips this afternoon. I had to work fast because the resin started kicking quicker than I thought.  Luckily I was mixing small batches in large paper bowls so it was manageable.  It got into the mid 70's this afternoon- it looks like we are going to just skip winter this year.

I cut out the opening for the tail light and did a trial fit. Unfortunately the standalone FlyLEDs tail light will not fit without some major modification so I ordered the much smaller tail light that is driven directly by the wing position/strobe light controller board. I'm not sure why I didn't order that in the first place.