Music: Lighthouse Family & David Bowie.
The interesting thing about building this aircraft is the number of activities and installations that need to be done that I’ve never done before. It takes a little thought to work out how to approach the task before starting but once completed successfully it gives you a great sense of achievement and satisfaction. The modification of the panel using glass fibre matting and resin is one such job. I knew what I wanted to achieve and now it’s complete I’m really pleased with the result.
This was how I left the panel yesterday. Now fully cured the fibreglass needs to be built up.
The area to be built up is wetted with resin and a layer of glass fibre is added and coated.
Once dried in around 30 minutes the area can be sanded down.
The rear of the panel ready is now complete but the front face needs to be filled with P38.
I used an Isopon glass fibre kit to bridge the gap and support the joins and P38 to fill and finish before painting with primer.
The filler is mixed using one golf ball sized ball of resin to one pea sized ball of hardener and mixed within 4 minutes. P38 sets in 20 minutes so you can’t hang around.
The filler is applied using a spatula and sanded smooth using 180 wet and dry. The process is repeated several times to remove any holes or dips.
The finished panel prior to painting. Apart from the different colour where the join is you can’t tell that it’s been modified. Very pleased with the result!
G-MLSY 