The beginning of any layup of this size is extremely daunting. There is micro, dry micro, slurry, flox... and all of this has to be applied within a 20-minute window...
I started out by applying flox to the wing attach plates. I regret having applied a flox fillet on the corner where the inboard rib meets the shear web wall. I thought I was going to tuck the UNI plies along this edge, but later realized that is not the case.
Applied flox around the metal attach pucks....
And around the attach pocket...
I then painted plain epoxy onto the trailing edge to get a nice glass-to-glass bond...
Micro and dry micro where it needed it... also poured micro into the rudder conduit channel...
I lifted the antenna ears and poured micro into the channel to make sure the antenna will be one with the structure...
Plain epoxy on the spar cap...
Moving quick, Elle helped me put the first UNI ply... as she began wetting that ply out, I was busy mixing epoxy and prepping the next section...
Here is a good shot showing the UNI edges are butted...
I then painted plain epoxy onto the bottom of the leading edge of the wing...
I trimmed the ply to have a 2" overhang and brushed the ply onto the bottom skin...
When I got to the outboard tip, I removed the clamp holding the nylaflow, wetted out the cloth, and re-applied the clamp to make sure conduit would stay in place...
We then applied the second ply, crossing in the opposite direction (just like the bottom skin).
The plans are very specific about making sure not to apply this 3rd ply onto the aileron portion of the wing... so I did the best I could to get the ply as close to the aileron hinge line without actually crossing it...
Finally, the outboard tip gets BID at 45 degree bias just like the bottom skin did...
The outboard tip gets peel plied...
To get a nice firm glass-to-glass bond on the trailing edge, I placed mixing sticks along the edge and clamped gently with cloth-pins. I should have added peel ply under the mixing sticks, as they later got stuck to the layup (more on that later)...
I was so eager to finish that I skipped taking a picture of installing the 3 UNI plies that go over LWA7... I then peel plied it...
And peel plied the 3"x12" 'V' over the depressions...
A little more peel ply here and there... and that's all she wrote!
The next day, I removed the cloth-pins... only to find the mixing sticks stuck to the trailing edge.. I should have applied peel ply under them (lesson learned for the left wing!)...
I used a spatula to scrape them off...
And then sanded everything smooth.. no harm done... (this pic was taken before sanding the trailing edge smooth)
It was now time to trim all the overhang...
Removed the peel ply from the outboard end...
I marked all the edges with a sharpie to guide the cut with the multi-tool...
Here is the trailing edge...
The outboard edge...
The forward inboard edge...
The aft inboard edge...
Ok, it's go time! Multi tool out and ready to trim... I drew an arrow on the outboard end of the wing to remind me NOT to cut the rudder conduit... so I got as close to it as I could and then used a knife to trim it away without causing damage to the conduit...
I did the same for the forward inboard edge... being extremely careful not to cut into the RG-400 cable of the nav antenna. I routed the cable towards the leading edge and inserted the other end into the nav light conduit for the time being. The foam will eventually be trimmed (not sure why I waited this long to do so)...
The aft inboard edge also got a trim... again, being extremely careful not to damage the nylaflow conduit...
The trailing edge got a trim as well... pretty rough but will be smoothed out once I sand it with a straight edge...
The right wing is almost there... I still have to apply the attach point reinforcement strips, and inboard ribs.
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