Matt's RV-8 Project



Matt Dralle's RV-8 Project
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Date:  2-18-2010
Number of Hours:  2.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Wheel Pant Gear Fairing Fabrication - Part 02

The fairings come as a front and back half that you align with the split in the main wheel pants. Once you've got them cut down, you bond them to the wheel pant with some standard mix epoxy resin. After the resin cures, you can mix up a nice thick mixture of resin and microballons and make a filler around the perimeter of the fairing, then sand it down nice and smooth. The temptation here is to call it done, since it looks so sweet. But alas, this isn't a very strong arrangement. I added four layers of 9oz glass cloth to both the front and back pieces with lots of standard mix resin. Once that cured, I sanded it down with a 1/4" sheet orbit sander. I highly recommend picking up a DeWalt 1/4" sheet orbit sander, by the way. Much easier to use that a standard round paper orbit sander and works great on this kind of stuff.

Once I got the glass lay ups sanded down, I sanded the whole wheel pant and then added a mixed of resin and microballons in a pretty thin mix to act as a filler. It worked pretty good. I discovered later (on the cowling) that you can thin the resin down with Acetone which *really works good*. It makes a much more even application and there's a lot less sanding.

Cont Next Log...
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Fairing Marked

Fairing Marked

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Fairing Marked

Fairing Marked

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Fairing Cleco'd In Place

Fairing Cleco'd In Place

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