Two great shop days in a row, how awesome is that?

Another five hours today; that makes ten hours for the weekend. A fantastic way to wrap things up for the week, I think.

I started out the day by sanding the stern post core and preparing it for bonding the ⅛” skins to it. The T-88 did a great job bonding the edges of the core pieces together, and waxed paper works fantastic as a barrier and release paper. I hadn’t worked with T-88 before so this was a trial run for me. T-88 measures out and mixes up easily. The change from two components, clear and honey, mixing to a cream color when stirred together makes it really easy to tell when it is thoroughly mixed. The best part is the smell, or lack there of. I have been doing some work with polyester resins in my day job, and that stuff is really noxious. The T-88 is so easy to work with and so far I am really happy with its performance.

With the stern post core bonding to the skins and clamped up, it was time to move on to the firewall. First I had to remove the strengtheners from the original firewall which took a little longer than I had hoped for. Once all of the hardware was removed and the strengtheners separated it was time to mark out the new firewall. After marking out the cut lines I set up the table saw and did the rip and cross cut for the basic shape. The new firewall matched up perfectly with the old one.

I decided to clamp them together and used the old firewall as a drilling jig for the new firewall which worked out very well. The holes are really snug on the bolts so any misalignment would make life difficult at this point. Fortunately everything lined up spot on and bolted up cleanly. The counter-sink worked much better this time around. With everything torqued up, the bolt heads are just a couple of thousandths below the surface and they look great.

   

   

With the shape cut and the strengtheners attached I started setting up some test boards for the bevels. Both side edges of the firewall have an 8.5º bevel and the top has a 5º bevel. I was concerned about the set up and I wanted to make sure I didn’t hose the second firewall. After a few sample passes through the table saw I had the angle and distance from the fence set up just right. Time for the bevel cuts.

   

After the bevels where cut it was time to cut the parallel notches in the bottom for the firewall that will eventually accommodate the longerons. There are still several things to do on the firewall but it is well under way.

   

If next weekend comes even remotely close to this weekend in productivity I should be able to finish the firewall and maybe even get a good head start on the stern post, at least get the rough blank cut for the stern post. Looks like I need to get my ducks in a row as far as materials go for the spar bulkheads.

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds.
~FlyBoyJon