Big layup. It took a lot longer than expected too. I had Michael again to work with, just impossible to do on my own both time wise, getting fibers straight and its more enjoyable with two of us. Together we work to a pretty high standard.

The fibers are pulled straight one at a time and half the length at a time for the longer pieces. There are 31 and each gets straightened after the cross threads and key thread are removed. Pic one shows the wetting out. The main tool is the squeegee. We didn’t use a brush except for wetting out the shear web before ply 1. I’m very confident we have no air and a minimum of excess epoxy. Despite the 26-28C room temp the little hair dryer got a small amount of use too.

OK. I made the decision to fill the trough per plans…. Thats the Roncz plans BTW even though in this log I put the GU page numbers in as a ref. …Not just to the edges, but to the profile which is rounded on top. If the intention of the designer was the option of skinning while the cap was still wet then it would need to be like this or a lot of filler later if the top was flat. The bottom was certainly less rounded than this side so that viewpoint would not have been an issue!

My approach is the fill to the profile or just proud and then sand back to the exact profile after cure and then skin. More work, sure. It turned out to be a lot more plies too. Final weight will be interesting.

14 plies were 108″ X 3 (full length), 105″, 97″, 90″, 81″, 70″, 60″, 45″, 30″ 16″, 10″, 5″ Too much? I was thinking around 9 would do it, but not with the profiles curve. Perhaps I’ve added a pound doing it this way. We will see. I’m happy with maximum strength in this critical area.

WOW thats it for spar caps. The last of EIGHT in the whole build! A mini milestone. Yeah OK… back to work…

Wetting out straigh fibers

Green is good

The last cap of the build DONE!