May 2001

Next job was to cut the foam from under the aileron flanges. I used one of those retactable craft knives that has snap-off blades. These knives are useful because you can fully extend the knife to get a decent lenght of cut. I then sanded the skin that was wrapped round the leading edge to get a feather edge. To get the correct depth for the flange, I sanded the foam using a flat sanding plate. I fixed an aluminium glazing-bar to the top skin with double-sided tape along the flange to keep it straight. With the first aileron I wetted out each ply on cling film before pushing it into place. This was tricky to do as it was difficult to lay in a ply without rucking the one underneath. On the second aileron, I did the entire lay-up on cling-film first and that worked much better. I found that it was awkward getting the cloth pushed properly into the corner until I tried using a brick-layer's trowel to force it in. (see picture below).

Aileron Flange - before Aileron Flange - after (note trowel in bottom right)

As mentioned above, I did the close-out on the other aileron by laying-up all the plies at once which was much easier. The only problem I found with this aileron was that when I came knife-trim the edges, the flange had separated from the aluminium extrusion. To ensure strightness, I pushed a foam wedge under the flange to force it up against the straight edge. Once cured, I cut the recesses for the hinges.

When trying to fit the hinges on the first aileron, I found that excess epoxy had run to the bottom of the closeout and so the hinge would not fit properly. I sanded it back, but I also had to take a little metal off the rear of the hinge to avoid cutting into the cloth. Once this was done, the hinges were a perfect fit and I rivetted them into position.

Fixing the hinges to the aileron

April 2001        August 2001(no work in June or July)