Winglet outboard bottom layups

With the inside layups complete, it was now time to make and install the famous "Block A". The plans said to install this before the inside layups cured, but as I explained in my earlier post, I was afraid this block would disrupt the layup, so I decided to let them cure first.

I made a paper template of the curvature of the winglet contour...

And used it to transfer the outline onto Block A...

I then used the bandsaw to trim block A...

Pretty good for a first try!

I then sanded the bottom of the block to match the inside layup of the winglet... I also sanded the corner edge and other surfaces to get as close as a match as possible...

Before bonding the block to the winglet corner, I had to prep the cured glass for a good bond since I had failed to peel ply this layup...

The winglet was now ready for its block A... I covered the surface with micro... and painted slurry onto block A and pressed it on... slurry of course oozed out like crazy, but was worth it to make sure no voids were present...

After cure, I was sad to see that the slurry had slowly run off and created voids along the wall... Not a big deal since this will later be filled with dry micro before the layup...

The right winglet was not as forgiving and created a larger gap than I had liked. So rather than filling it with dry micro later, I decided to fill it with pour foam.

Now the fun part begins! I took a knife and began carving away...

Slowly getting there... I didn't want to remove too much... so I shaved off a little at a time..

Finally getting closer to that "flat" corner we are looking for...

I used a sanding block for the final fine tuning...

I then noticed that some of the wider UNI plies were going to extend aft of my block A... this is because unlike the original plan's winglets, I have a pocket where the hidden rudder belhorn will go..

Since I didn't want the UNI plies to be "floating", I created a small dam using squeegee cards, and used pour foam to extend foam block A just forward of the rudder conduit...

After the foam cured, I removed the dam and sanded it to blend with block A....

 Making sure the corner is as flat as possible...

Happy with foam block A... it was now time to cut fiberglass.. it was a lot easier to place the BID onto the winglet corner at 45 and cut what I needed (2 plies BID at 45 extending 15" up the winglet and 15" up the wing... tapering as shown in the plans)... Oh, and 7 plies UNI...

Even the surfaces had been peel plied, we sanded everything and made sure everything was ready for the layup. After the surfaces were cleaned, we painted them with plain epoxy...

And slurried the foam..

Two plies of BID at 45...

Followed by the UNI plies... I didn't prepreg them because I was afraid they would get scrunched up.. so we just used a brush to wet them out one at a time, and a squeegee to remove any excess...

One UNI ply at a time... and finally the last ply!...

Oh, and then repeat this whole process for the other winglet!

Peel plied everything...

After cure, I removed the peel ply...

And cleaned things up... sanded the little peel ply strands off.. and trimmed the leading and trailing edges... and there you have it!! Winglet outboard bottom layups complete!!!