After making a little plastic hut around the tail of the plane it was time to layup the fiberglass. I first ran some tests and let them cure for a day so I didn't screw my large hours on making the mold because I knew it wasn't going to make it two rounds of layup. I used 4 plies of 7781 from Spruce for the layup, the part is quite strong after the fact. I waxed the mold after some more tape work and went to town. I used 4 mil plastic and wet the fiberglass between two layers of the plastic. Then I cut the pieces to size (a little larger than needed) and laid them on the plane. I overlapped in the middle by a few inches, it didn't leave as much of a hump as I thought it would, sanding and micro will take care of it no problem. Finally, I applied the only peel ply I had which was two inch (man I wish I had wider for this one!) The next day I popped the part off, the wax I used worked perfect and let the part go like it was no big deal.
Here it is all laid up. If you look closely you can see a bubble towards the top, it came off the VS about 1/16-1/8", I will fill the back a little and sand it down, no big deal. This was the only spot that it didn't fit perfectly to the fuse.
On a side note, it sure looks ugly at this point. haha
20190504_153458 by
Jereme Carne, on Flickr
Here is the part after some trimming was done. As you can see I still have to extend the forward parts down and aft a few inches to really close it up. I simply couldn't get the fiberglass to lay down in this area nicely as one large sheet (probably because there was four plies in one?).
20190505_165526 by
Jereme Carne, on Flickr
Overall I am really happy so far with how the part came out, it may not look like it yet but the contour is pretty dang good! The flat sections in the back came out a little wavy for my liking and I don't think I can use micro alone to fix it so I may have to do some trimming and re-glassing of that area but that's no big deal, it is nice and flat back there; or at least it will be.
It's starting to look like something, long ways to go in finishing it but it's cruising right along.
Let me know what you guys and gals think.