June 5, 2005

This weekend I finished drawing the bottom half of frame 4. The top half of this frame is in the middle of the cockpit windshield. I'll draw that one on the next jig I draw. I had to separate them to minimize the total number of plywood sheets I needed to draw on. They are two different C-sections joined at an angle so it didn't matter if they were on the same sheet. I drew the diagonal frame between frames 2 and 3 on the top half of this sheet. Here's a lovely shot of the knot riddled plywood I drew on.

I also made a test block with the penacolite glue. It was borderline warm enough, but in the direct sunlight it must have been at least 80 degrees F for sure. I mixed up a small batch of red-brown goop and glued the test block together.

The plastic wrap was just a test to make sure the glue doesn't adhere to it. I'll use this to keep the frames from being glued to the jig when I'm gluing them. This glue calls for 25 to 250 psi of pressure to reduce the glueline to a very thin joint. This pressure is supposed to stay on for many hours so as the sun got weaker I moved the test block inside.

The Aerolite test blocks have to sit for 14 days before I can test/destroy them but the penacolite only needs 6 days to fully cure. I felt confident with the penacolite test block but I'm concerned that it wasn't warm enough. I'll make sure to make a successful test block before I attempt to glue any frames. If this one doesn't pass the test, I'll note the differences once I make a successful one.

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