Brief Description: Windscreen & canopy fairing work
I went out to the hangar yesterday to pick up a couple of things, and while there, I removed the peel ply to see what kind of sanding I had in store…that answer was “a lot”. Today was the day to get started on the process. Using 60 grit sandpaper and four different sanding blocks made specifically for this, I got going on shaping the fairing. Although boring, the work wasn’t terribly difficult, but it took me a few hours to knock the rough edges off and start to see the definition formed by the upper layer of electrical tape. The electrical tape serves a couple of purposes, not the least of which is to provide a clean edge transition between the fairing and the plexiglass. With two layers in place, the top layer serves as a sacrificial barrier that you sand down to…when you just get through the epoxy layer the vinyl provides a different feel against the sandpaper. The sensation goes from sanding to dragging and is the sign to stop before going too deep into the top layer.
Once the rough sanding was complete, I mixed up some micro and epoxy and filled as many low spots as I could find. I’m flying tomorrow night, so I’ll probably sneak out to the hangar in the morning for some more sanding and filling.
