Brief Description: Contouring the intake and leading edges
Fun night. I mixed a batch of good and dry micro with just enough resin to mold nicely and spread it over the leading edges of the intakes. Funny, as I was searching for intake designs I found that the Ferrari F430's intakes have strikingly similar lines as I had created on mine. I guess if they work on a Ferrari then I shouldn't have much trouble :) This contouring however is not final. I will be sanding this down to create a perfect shape in which to layup 1 ply of glass over the entire front side. On to the strakes. I took 80 grit to the entire strake topsides and leading edges in prep for filler. I decided that the West systems won't cut it for large areas exposed by the sun so it was back to the trusty old Z-Grip. I enjoyed opening that stuff and using it again. It doesn't get "Gummy" the way West systems does so it's very nice to spread over large areas like this. The pre-made strakes were molded in peel ply and I'm almost sure that the small pits will easily be filled when skim coating. I may add a SMALL amount of microballons to the first skim coat just to fill those gaps a bit more, but we'll see. For now I needed to start smoothing out the seem lines with the z-grip in prep for the skim. I've also decided to lay down the several coats of skim but NOT sand them until I've got the bottom of the plane all the way through primer. This will create a nice SOLID shell to protect the surface while underneath work is being done. Anyways I'm getting ahead of myself. It's just nice that after almost 2000 hrs and 2 years I'm starting to plan on the final steps of the fuselage. :)
