Next up was filling the gaps in the segments with dry micro. I was thinking about using West 410 as its a bit lighter but I’m unsure about putting glass over this so I went West fast setting epoxy but with micro.

There were a couple of cure cycles after I went through a lot of sanding. The legs will need the profile smoothed out later. My thoughts are that I can use 410 on the outside and that will be less weight than micro pre glass. A few hundred grams maybe?

Here they are with the segments filled and it is a bit of a mess to look at.

I tried hard shelling the blue foam so thats what the peel ply on top is for. I don’t think the West epoxy is much good for this sort of thing. I improved the surface but it would take many rounds to get it perfect, especially considering I’m nearly upside down on the back of the gear. It was hours of fun on the floor with sanding residue in my face.

Once all this was cured and some more sanding was involved I went for glassing the underside of the leg first. I made foil templates and went for two ply of BID using the slow cure regular epoxy. I knew I’d need time and allowing for the stickiness. I again painted the underside of the legs in pure epoxy, just a very light coat, then I microed the legs and let them sit. Meanwhile I had prepared the two plies of BID wrapped in plastic top and bottom. Then I went and had a coffee.

It was just starting to get a little tacky after a good 40 minutes. My plan was to wrap the underside securing the foil sandwich around the leading edge and over and also at the trailing edge where I’d secure it.

To my surprise this worked better than expected. The layup still with foil was happy to sit without support on the back of the leg where you’d think gravity would make it fall. Ahhh but it was mighty sticky by now, the micro particularly.

I carefully peeled off the remaining plastic and foil and smoothed out the layup with my hands removing all the bubbles and slowly easing the large piece into position. It sat well around the LE and as you see I had my light clamps ready for the TE. I used mixing sticks covered in electrical tape as the hard surface for the back and the foam was OK on the front to go straight on to. I had hard shelled it previously. A couple of days to do all this, but progress.