I put the bottom skins on the flaps today. First, the wedges had to be placed. The plans call for 3M F9460PC VHB™ Adhesive Transfer Tape. I snagged a 0.5 in x 60 yard roll as that was the perfect width for the wedge and that length should cover all the control surfaces for the aircraft. It's double-sided so when you pull the paper off to expose the other side, you'd best hope you're not fighting a poorly adhered underside.
First the left flap. After cleaning the parts to be adhered (and they were, surprisingly, extremely dirty), I placed a strip of the tape on the top skin and immediately pulled the paper off. Turns out that's a bad idea since you need to let the tape "cure" to the metal for a while. So I was meticulously scraping the tape from the paper with a knife, trying to keep it intact. I placed the other strip of tape on the wedge thinking that would make my life easier. It didn't since the wedge has a lot more holes in it than the skin, which means there's less material for the tape to bond to, again making it hard to pull the paper off.
Anyway, here's the left flap, weighted down (with anything I could find) after the wedge was adhered and cleco'd.
For the right flap, I taped both the skins and waited 15 minutes for the tape to "cure" before pulling the paper off. It helps to keep the skins separated so I used little wood blocks as shims for that purpose.
And here are the flaps resting until I rivet their trailing edge wedges. Eying them down their sight-lines suggests these puppies are going to look nice and straight. You can also see the aileron parts in the background, awaiting their due attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment