This was an overnight preheat of the room and things ready to go. I have the glue in a hotbox with a timer. I decided to do this one on my own despite offers for help. Its seems a reasonable size to handle and I wanted to see how my skills were going.

I first mixed a really small amount of micro and did the sloped edges of the baggage hole with a small brush. I wanted a good surface to work on and no micro on the edges of the hole. That gets pure epoxy, also applied with a small brush.

Next a big mix and coat the spar face and sides using a roller. I had previously sanded and cleaned the surface and a very light wipe with acetone. The premarked cloth was relatively easy to get placed with straight fibers, the sides needing only an inch glass to glass really fell into place. Once happy with the three pieces of layup one (two large lengths one one really short at the end) I wetted it out in the usual manner with the roller and followed up with the squeegee. Lots of trimming with scissors on the sides too. Once happy the second ply went on.

For both plies I spent a lot of time around the baggage cutout as expected and got it to lay down nicely using my fingers as a stippler and then a brush which did the job. It was reluctant to sit without air bubbles so needed persuasion. A nice warm room helped get the glass sticky too as I’m not working too quickly.

After the two plies were done and trimmed. It looked great. Then time to peel ply the lot which took a good couple of hours. Not a fan of the peel… but needed and using the heat gun helped wet it all out. Once cured,k underneath that stuff is a good layup, no excess epoxy and no air I could see either.

It took about 5 hours, the radio on and just working at my own pace. Oh and I’m calling every log entry 10 hours… its always more than that per entry, in this case lots of prep last night and the clean up and so on. Yes just 10 hours per entry is an understatement.

Nice straight fibers

Looks best before the peel ply

Done and curing