Brief Description: The windshield fiberglass layup.
Monday was the day that we laidup the windshield. We really lucked out on the weather and temperature. Early Sunday morning a cool front moved through the area and lowered the temperatures about 20 degrees while leaving some rain, of all things. We got up at 4:45 AM to get to the hangar by 7:00 AM.
We quickly started mixing the resin and epoxy with black pigment. I used a bristle brush to paint a first layer of mixture on the skin and then laid on the cloth. We had to use short pieces around the curves and butted them next to each other. The next layer would overlay the previous butt joint, etc. We had to work quickly before the pot life of the epoxy timed out. We applied four layers around the front of the windshield and seven layers across the windshield/canopy gap. The temp started at 80 degrees but quickly rose to 90 degrees by 11:00 AM. It was stressfull and annoying to have to work so quickly, but we had to. A couple of our mixtures ran out of pot life before we could use it all. As I finished stipling the final layers, Charlotte was applying the peel ply to reduce the amount of sanding that we have to do. Nobody said it would be easy!!!
We finished at 11:30 AM and then sat down to eat our packed lunch and consume our water and Gatorade. Tomorrow the sanding begins.
