Empennage Completed!

Empennage Completed!

Cutting to the chase after close to 250 hours over the last 6 months I completed the first kit of my RV-10.  Now I use the term completed lightly because there will be other steps later where I return back to this section.  There's a cowling that comes with the finishing kit (I think), I will have to mount antennas, lights and probably various other things as well as rivet the top two sections which will remain cleco'd for now.

Empennage Completed!

Proof I was there!

Fiberglass Work

Prior to the above picture I had continued to do fiberglass work.  It's been a bit of a slow process but wanted to use it as a learning tool, really get my feet wet on various fiber glass techniques.  There's some great resources out there on how to work with fiberglass and I'll include some pictures but I was a bit all over the place so it's not documented very well.  Here are some highlights of some of the techniques I used.

• Basics of cutting cloth and doing layup, both with colored pigment and clear.
• Used Flox (Resin, hardener, microballoons) to contour some edges on the inside of pieces as practice.
• Used Flox to get a flat smooth finish on the outside of pieces
• Made a custom curved wood sanding block to get a consistent curve on the HS leading pieces
• Skimcoating to fill scratches and pinholes.
• Primed fiberglass pieces did some sanding ect for cosmetic purposes.

Now here are a few of the in progress images... some things I did twice, for example after first application of primer to the pieces I decided I didn't like it and learned how to do skim coats.  Turned out much better...

Post fiberglass and major sanding.

Using Epoxy and Micro balloons 

Hard to see but this had a lot of pinholes

Custom inside radius sanding block

 After sanding I ended up with a marbled piece showing the various techniques I used.  This is after I sanded to contour and applied two skim coats to fill any pinholes.  Makes it a bit interesting looking.

• Black - Cloth and epoxy with pigment
• White - Epoxy and microballons (Flox)
• Light gray - really thick Flox, more balloons the lighter it gets
• Dark Gray - Thin Flox used as filler
• Clear - Can't see it but there's resin over the top.

Primed

Sanded primer with 1000 grit and installed

Final fitting

HS piece not primed or screwed in.

Next Steps

The QB Wings and Fuselage are due to be here March/April but that could easily become April/May or May/June... who knows.  To keep the building mentality going there are a number of things I plan on getting done before these major structures arrive.  I won't be clock ours towards the project unless I'm physically touching the plane but some of these are going to take a substantial amount of time.  Here's what I'm looking at done prior to getting the QB parts.

• Read through the Wing and Fuselage plans preparing to my own QA when I get my parts.
• Construct a rolling wing cradle per these plans.
• Update project plan baseline to include things I plan on adding/removing/changing.
• Update Paint scheme with some other ideas I've had... maybe silver and black, maybe all black... maybe pink with baby unicorns.
• Read through AC 43.13.. more of an educational item for me.