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Building Integrity
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Date:  11-25-2015
Number of Hours:  6.00
Manual Reference:  Section 2
Brief Description:  The fun stuff...or not

Doing the same thing over and over again is difficult for me to enjoy. But I'm sure I'm in good company. Today, I set out to extend the height of my box 1/4" because I had the room and knew I needed it. At the same time, my air filter was set to arrive today and I wanted to have the box ready for the filter if possible. Well, after adding the foam, aluminum tape and 2 plies glass, I was back to micro and sanding with several "oven" cures in between. I also decided I could build the hatch out of 3 plies Carbon on a flat steel sheet at the same time. I really had the shop moving now. Well, after another 3 or 4 rounds of micro I was ready to trim the hatch and cut out the box top and start clearing foam!
Carving out the foam inside an access hole sized 5"x6" is NOT fun and got a little violent, breaking some of the glass bonds. on the forward and aft walls. This isn't a terrible thing but only means more micro work inside and out. The other issue I ran into was that the aluminum foil release tape was NOT coming off. I decided I will lay up 1 ply of glass on the inside all around to cover up the mess and add rigidity to the box at the same time. It will turn out nice enough.
The most interesting surprize however, was that when the filter arrived, it's dimensions were less than advertized in height by 1/4"!!! So I didn't have to add the height afterall?? Not so fast... After dry fitting the filter inside the box, it seems as though my work was worth it. The ridge that clears the fuel lines on the bottom is raised enough to cause clearance issues but not now that I've added the height to the box. Seems for now that all is well. I also added the 2, 1.5" flanges to the forward wall using 5 minute epoxy and they will be getting 1 ply BID over the backside here soon.
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adding 1/4

adding 1/4" height to the box

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3 plies Carbon access hatch

3 plies Carbon access hatch

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3 rounds of micro

3 rounds of micro

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