Glassing the Longerons...

After spending some time cleaning up the sides after glassing, it was time to glass the longerons.  To prep, I first had to fill some surface imperfections left from bubbles in the peel ply from when I glassed the sides.  I also rounded the corners of the longerons to help the glass contour better.  Another builder recommended this also because your shoulder will be bumping into the top longeron and that square corner will remind you that you didn't round it every time it happens.

TIP: I used a process recommended by a fellow builder, Buly Aliev, to glass the longerons.  I started by laying out a plastic sheet, marked it with a sharpie the size I needed for the 4 ply glass to go on the longerons.  Then I built up the layup from the top layer to the bottom layer starting with a layer of peel ply.  Buly didn't necessarily recommend the peel ply but I like it because of the sanding work it saves.  After wetting out the peel ply and the 4 layers of glass, I cut the entire stack to the dimensions marked by the sharpie leaving a neat ready to apply glass layup.  Next I brushed some raw epoxy on the longerons and transfered the application over onto the longerons glass side down of course, massaged it into place, squeeged out the air, and voila.  A helper makes this easier...my Dad was in town and came in really handy.  It wasn't as easy as it is to write about it...I had some dry spots (oversqueeged) to deal with and some difficulty in gettting the glass to stick in some of the tight corners ...but the process Buly recommended worked well. 

Just remember, most of the inside layups of the fuselage sides and the inside longerons are visible when comlete and you want them to look good when painted.  To look good then, they need to look good now so it would be a good time to fix any inperfections, like peel ply bubbles, now when it's much easier then waiting until time to paint the interior when space inside to sand and work is more cramped.

No pictures this time...wouldn't really show you much.  Onward to the lower longerons.

cab