On to the exciting stuff!
Wing laid out on the prep table with glass getting cut to size. The plan here is to use one layer of unidirectional laterally the length of the wing with 45 degree bidirectional on the leading edges and tips. It's all experimental stuff to see how little we can get away with and still have a pretty robust wing.
The perforated 'Peel Ply' - really high tech stuff here, it's clear vinyl table cloth from bunnings - I have no idea how well it will work but this is why we're doing this on a test wing and not the pretty one!
Wetted out
Applying Peel Ply
Shiney...
It puts the wing in the bag...
It applies suction... You can see some epoxy already making its way out
It puts a tent up and takes the wing camping... wait... what?
Yes it is a tent - since it's pretty cold here at the moment and trying to heat a hanger is a little much for a fan heater, we shot down the road and for $19 got a 3 man tent to use as a bagging oven. In with the pump, a fan heater and a thermometer and we have a good constant 35 degrees C or 95F. The wing is chocked up for a couple of reasons - to keep the air circulating all around it and to help maintain the dihedral.
5-6 hours later out of the ove..ten...hmm tent oven! By this stage the epoxy has gotten pretty solid and as you can see quite a bit of it has come out which is exactly what we were after.
Unfortunately this is where I have to leave it. It will be a couple of weeks before I can update it again due to have prior commitments for the coming weekend involving a friends birthday and potentially a pretty decent hangover... yay!
It took a huge amount of restraint not to tear into the bag and check out the finish but apparently you shouldn't do that till about 12 hrs down the line. Not to say that we didn't open the bag and pull aside some of the wadding, despite the apparent lack of resin visible on the outside there was actually quite a bit around the outside of the peel ply, this is a good thing. The more on the outside of the PP, the less in the glass and the less weight we have in the wing.
I think a good place to leave it
More in a couple of weeks!