Quickheads

Somehow I managed to completely destroy two good video camera's while working on my airplane. (Probably all of the dust.) Therefore, I apologize for the lack of time lapse video this week.

However, I have done a lot of work on my project over the last week, including closing up that unsightly hole in my header tank. I'll post a few pictures below for your enjoyment. 

The picture above shows the area of the top of the fuselage, just in front of the cockpit.  The area in the center of the picture shows that after I sanded off the paint and primer, a "Spiderweb" of missing foam was visible through the top layer of fiberglass.  Seems like there was a fuel leak from the header tank, which incidentaly, is why I decided to remove the header tank in the first place.

The photo above shows the same area as the first picture, only this time I back lit the area to make the foam void more visible.  Pretty scarey really.

This is another close-up shot of the voided area.  To the right of the void, you can see three small white dots, where someone had obviously tried to fill the void with micro slurry.  I initially was thinking along those lines as well.  However, when I saw the extent of the foam damage, I decided that more extensive repairs were neccessary.  Namely, I decided to remove the bottom layer of glass, then remove ALL of the foam in the affected area, and replace it with 3/8" LAST-A foam from Aircraft Spruce.

The damaged foam extended down the right side of the fuselage, into the area surrounding the fuel filler door.  So of course I needed to remove the foam in this area as well.

These photos I thought actually looked kind of beautiful. . . That is until I thought about having my ass in this cockpit with my wife at 10,000 feet.  This is the test I was told to use when embarking on any repair.  Have you done the installation to a point where you would feel comfortable bringing a loved one along with you. . . and will you be comfortable with your decisions when you're 10,000 feet in the air?  These questions should give anyone pause.

The photo above, shows this portion of the fuselage after I had removed the bottom layer of glass, and the majority of the "bad foam."  At this point there was still a bit of foam to remove around the fuel filler door, but I began cutting out some cardboard templates in order to start cutting the LAST-A foam.

You can see videos of the fiberglass and foam removal process in Hour 45 and Hour 46.  Basically, I used wire brushes and bottle cleaners connected to my variable speed drill, to pull out all the foam between the two layers of glass.  After that, the bottom layer of glass was pretty easy to cut with a dremel, and pull out.

Above you can see my beautiful cardboard template for fitting the LAST-A foam in the front of the cockpit.  I took a smaller piece of cardboard and fit it to the left side (see previous picture).  Then I cut out a piece for the right hand side.  I slid thes two pieces of cardboard into the channel that I had cleared out behind the firewall,  Then I pressed a third piece of cardboard against those, marked the edges, and created a small wedge that I could use to spread the larger pieces outward a bit, to try and ensure a tight fit.  I then marked the canopy outline (see the top of the picture.)  This allowed me to line up the pieces on the floor and "duct tape" them all together.

In the picture above, you can see that I used the three pieces of cardboard to create a final Carboard template on a much larger piece.  I wanted to be sure that it fit the space perfectly before continuing with the "slightly" more expensive foam.    As you can see, the cardboard version fit pretty well.

When it came time to fit the foam into place, it became apparent that it would be "difficult at best" to push the foam into the channel behind the firewall.  The recess was just too deep to receive the foam with out breaking it.  However, I wanted to maintian the original shape of the fuselage shell so I decided to cut back only the top side of the channel.  This would allow me to bend the foam over the bottom half of the channel, but allow me just enough of a recess to hold eveything in place before final assembly.

The photo above is a close-up of the "channel" that I had created for the foam.  You can see the recess here that would eventually hold the foam in place while the epoxy cured.  The theory was great. . .

. . . however, the execution of the theory was a little tricky.  I check fit the foam dry, to ensure that I liked the way it all fit together.  Wouldn't you know, that as soon as I had smeared micro slurry over the entire piece of foam the problem began?  (Murphy strikes again.)  At any rate, I got the foam pressed into place and the slurry, looked like it was going to bond nicely to the top layer of glass. . . but there was just this one little area that stuck out a bit too far on the pilot's side (inside the cockpit.)  So of course I applied just a little more force to the foam in order to get it to recess correctly. . . and SNAP!. . . awe SH*T!  Foam cracked in one clean break from stem to stern!  Dang it!  I considered my options, but the plans say that you can join pieces of foam with more slurry, so I mixed up a quick batch and forced it into the crack.

I wrapped a roll of duct tape around the area to hold the crack together while the slurry died.  It seemed to work out OK.

When everything was dry, I glued some sand paper to an "eyeball straight" board and decided to smooth out any high areas near the cracked foam.. . .

. . . the low areas, I decided to fill in with pour-in-place foam. . .

. . . I quickly realized that pouring a quart of two part to fill a 1/32" low spot was a very dumb idea. . .

. . .so I took my jamb saw, and sur-foam planes from Harbor Freight Tools and went to work taking all the two part foam back off.   (Live and learn, I guess.)

The next area I need to concentrate on was the area surrounding the fuel filler door.  When I touched the foam below the door area, it was wet.  Now, if you remember in Hour 10, I had to drain about 10 gallons of water out of the header tank.  When I smelled the wetted area, it had no odor, but it clearly needed to be dried out fully.  So. . .

 I decided to cut some holes in the main tank, and place a hair dryer in there on low for a few hours.  After I'm finished rebuilding the header tank, you never guess in a million years what my next rebuild project will be.  Did I say, "Dang it!" yet?  

In the meantime, please feel free to leave comments below, or in the forums.

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