I was damn busy at work this week so didn't get anything done during the week. But I had a decent couple of sessions on the weekend though and made some good progress.
I put the glass tape reinforcing on the lower fuselage seam - so that is all the fuselage reinforcing done now - save for the lower panel which will happen much later on.
The rest of the time I spent refining the shape on the oil cooler air scoop. It's starting to look good.
I put a layer of micro over it and added some of the fumed silica - which actually I didn't need to do as I have changed my mind about how I am making this scoop. Rather than get rid of the foam I will leave it in place to act as the core of a sandwich of glass. The fumed silica when mixed straight with resin acts as a gel coat - so it made the micro quite hard and so harder to sand. But it has made the scoop much less fragile to handle than when it was just foam.
Things are not so simple on this job as the panel this scoop will go onto is not flat - therefore the base of the foam scoop has to be angled to match the panel - and it is curved as well!
I'm pretty happy with the way it fits now and so I cut out the inside and sanded it smooth.
I'll most likely just put a layer or two of lightweight fabric on the inside - and maybe 3 layers or so of a medium weight fabric on the outside.
Next step will be to determine what shape I want the removable panel to be that the scoop will get bonded to. This will allow for access to the oil cooler - post installation should I ever need to get in there for any reason.
I'll have to make a flange for that panel to sit on. I will most likely use nut plates underneath the flange and countersunk screws on top to attach it with.
In the rear view you can see the hatched rectangle which is where I plan to have the exit duct - ahead of that in dashed lines is the cowl flap location.
You can see why I need to have the scoop inlet well clear of the boundary layer - with the undercarriage leg fairing disturbing the air in front. Although this gear leg fairing is nicely made so it shouldn't cause too much loss of flow.
Fun and games - as I've never done anything like this before - so it is a bit of a 'moving feast'. Still that's what building a plane is all about - learning new things...
 |
| Lower fuse seam reinforce |
 |
| Scoop in place on lower fuse |
 |
| Inside carved out |
 |
| Ditto |
 |
| Location of exit duct, cowl flap and scoop |
 |
| Gear leg fairing |
No comments:
Post a Comment