Stab tip fairings

[tcone1]

Hello All,

Has anyone else made the mistake of sanding the gelcoat off of their stab tips? In an effort to "do it right" I sanded the gel coat back to aid adhesion for the glass reinforcement strip between the stab and tip.

What I found when I finally got down to glass was gross. The gel coat was 0.157 thick in places and covered massive (dime sized) voids between the glass and gel coat.

What a mess. Are my parts the worst glass pieces ever, or are others suffering as well?

Tim

[swisseagle]

Hello Tim

Yes, I had the same!

Actually I'm working on the wingtips and I found there a gel coat thickness of up to 2/32"!

This is huge, I was building rc-models in the past, we put only a thin coat of the gel coat, or nothing and primered the parts after. Yes, you have to fight against pinholes, but the parts were light!

I think, to "cover" the the work behind, they put on more then enough of the gel coat. This is nice if you have to grind a little to remove imperfecions in the surface, but this gel coat is only heavy and has nearly no structual strenght (bend a cutaway strip and you will see).

Look good on the parts, maybe against an lamp to see the encapsuled bubbels, open them up and fill them again.

I would pay definitly much more for the fiberglas parts if they are done a bit more professional. Dont know about the cowling and the fairings, they look different, will see when the finish kit arrives in a year or two.

Regards, Dominik

[RV7Guy]

Better off finding the issue now than after you put on a coat of paint!! Check your tips closely too.

This has been a gripe of mine for a couple of years. I can't understand why Van's uses two types of glass construction on the kits. Epoxy glass for the cowl, wheel pants and fairings and Polyesther for the wing tips and tail glass. When I asked Van's about this, the reply was that, "it must not be too bad because we haven't had that many complaints."

However, virtually everyone has had an issue with the glass. With a kit of this quality overall why does the glass components have to be so inferior?