Time for another update. I’ve filled the spirals in the false motor tubes and sprayed primer on them to check for missed spots. The photo below shows the end with the fin alignment guide on and the first two fins tacked in place.
Here is a view with all the fins tacked in place and the alignment tool removed.
Next I began pouring 30 minute epoxy down the fin roots to get them firmly attached. This took a while since I could really only effectively do two fins at a time. Then I needed to let them set up so I could rotate the airframe and do another two. Also, since I needed to get epoxy down both sides of the fin roots, it still took seven rotations to get them all done. Here is a look down from the end. The lighting is bad so you might not see much epoxy but it is there.
After all the roots had cured I more or less repeated the process to be sure that I got a good joint all the way down. I then needed to pour fillets for the fins where they meet the dummy motor tubes. I used some clay to plug the end and keep the epoxy from running out and all over the motor tube.
I then poured epoxy into the area and made sure the tube was barely in a nose up attitude. This allowed the epoxy to flow and level without all of it leaking down the front of the fin. I did make sure that some epoxy did flow down the front edge of the fin into the void below. That made for a nice smooth fillet line from the leading edge to the trailing edge.
I then mixed some epoxy with microballoons to make a paste that I could use to fill the voids between the dummy motor tubes and the main motor tube. The picture looks ugly, but when looking at it by eye it is relatively smooth. I’ll see what it looks like when I spray primer over the whole bird later.
Next I need to start working on the nose cone and then can come the painting. Maybe I’ll be ready for a test flight in August?
Thanks for looking…more to come.
Luhman-ations 