Temporary Cover for the Fuselage

To make it easier to keep the cabin area clean and dry I made a nice fitted cover from a heavy duty 8'x10' poly tarp from Lowes. I used duct tape to tape it in position to neatly form the pleats. I then sewed the pleats with some (Poly Fiber) machine sewing thread with my cheap Singer machine. Now I just slip it over the cabin and hold it snug with a bungee around the bottom rear and one on each gear leg.

It's much easier to install and remove than a loose tarp and it doesn't flap in the breeze which is what gets them torn on sharp corners, etc.

Final Spray Coats of Poly Brush

Before I sprayed the first coat of Poly Brush I looked very carefully for any bare spots along the spars and re-brushed them to fill them in. What I found was I should have put Poly Brush on the spars like on the leading edge, etc. Anything on the lower (flat) surface within 1/8" and anything on the top (scalloped) surface within 1/4" of the fabric should have 2 coats of Poly Brush. The poly drips on such surfaces as you brush and then wicks adjoining areas clean. After several careful applications the bare spots fill and blend in nicely under the spray coats.

To make life easier mixing 3:1 I marked up a stirring stick by carefully pouring 1/2 gallon of well mixed Poly into a clean empty can (lower mark). Then I made a higher mark at a distance equal to 1/3 of the lower height. Then all I had to do was add the Reducer to the second mark and I have very consistent 3:1 mix.

I also found it helpful to filter the Poly Brush mix into an empty reducer can for pouring into the cup of my HVLP spray gun. Quick and easy No Mess pouring, easy to open and close the can, easy to keep well shaken. I'll do another can for the Poly Spray. .

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Both wings now have 2 full spray coats. We're ready to start the Poly Spray the next warm dry day. They are not perfect but I'm very happy. Much more fun than just doing bits of all these steps in training classes.

Some Problem Spots

There are a few spots which need a touch up with the 225 deg. iron. I also found a few spots where the first brushed coat did not fully encapsulate the fabric. All the spots where where the fabric is close to but not touching some structure. Almost all of these were along the spars. The fabric only sits about .040" from the spar, the thickness of the rib plus anti chafe tape. When the first coat of poly-brush was brushed on, the liquid on the back of the fabric appears to have transferred to the structure leaving the fabric nearly dry. In the first 2 pictures it left little more than pin holes. The third picture shows a spot over the spar which has a large dry spot. I've gone back and lightly brushed some 3:1 Poly-brush over the areas and feathered it as best I could. I think I can smooth the edges a little with the iron and or some reducer. I'll check the other wing before I spray and fix any spots I can find which should prevent it from ever showing. There appears to be poly brush actually on the fibers just not enough to seal it.

First Spray Coats

Yea! Finally we're spraying. There is hope these wings will get done. I got to use my new HVLP spray gun also. Well it was new in 1997. It's just taken a while to get to this project. The gun was a going away present from the people I worked with at Genicom, before I started my embroidery business. The instructions are to put on a medium coat of poly-brush, dry 2 hours then a full wet coat. Surprising how much redder it looks and the poly brushed over the tapes are blended very well. The next dry day we'll get the second coat on.

Fuselage Brought Home

Yesterday I went back to Bill Oliver's house and brought home the Fuselage and all it's associated parts. With that we have the whole plane at the house, along with the Fly Baby and WACO NINE. Can life possibly get any better? We wrapped the fuselage with 4 mil plastic and duct tape to make sure nothing fell off or got broke in the wind. For less than $20 it was cheap insurance and worked great. The trailer is my sister in-law's boat trailer which we keep in our back yard (we live at a lake). The main gear was ratchet strapped to a plank on the trailer. The tail wheel was strapped to the spare tire and separately to the tongue of the trailer.

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. To get the mains on and off the trailer we used some car ramps with one end raise with blocks to make it easier for 2 old guys to do.

To keep the wheels from sliding various blocks were screwed to the main cross board. That 2x10 was Bolted to the frame with 3/8" U-bolts.

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The fuselage is now ready to move into the tent once the spraying is done on the wings.

The upholstery on the seats appears to be original from 1947. I need to do some research on original fabrics. They are in very good condition if they are original.

Ready To Spray Wings

It's almost amazing. Both wings are ready to start spraying. The tapes are all on with a coat of poly-brush over them. They've all been ironed to smooth the edges and any other lumpy spots. The grommets have been added in the low corner of each bay. The seaplane grommets are installed on the drains for the fuel tank bay and dollar patches are applied to all grommets in the slipstream. Everything is ready for the poly-brush to be sprayed on. Well almost everything, the weather forecast for tomorrow is bad. Time to tune up the spray gun and make sure it will work well with poly-brush.

Tapes on RH Wing

I need to start these things earlier in the day. I keep running out of daylight. The patches went much faster with everything prepared. The chordwise tapes I pre-cut to length and roll up with a paper clip to keep them out of the dirt. You wouldn't want them to get wet and rust but even I'm not that slow.

One of the nice things with polyester fabric is the ability to stretch and shrink it to fit nicely around things rather than making lots of cuts in the tapes.

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The tapes are done. I still need to iron the edges smooth, put on another coat of poly-brush over the tapes and add drain grommets. Then I can spray both wings with poly-spray and color. It's nice to have them looking like wings.

RH Wing Ready For Patches & Tapes

They say tomorrow will be warmer and hopefully I can get the tapes all on. One coat of Poly Brush goes under all the tapes and patches. Pencil or chalk lines were laid out for all of them using 2" wide straight edge. The poly brush gets feathered along the edges so it was a little slow. Sometimes even having fun is like work. It came out real good and gives you a reason to think through where patches and tapes will go. The 2 inspection rings are on and all the patches are cut out. Tomorrow when this poly brush is dry applying everything should move right along.

Fabric Clips on RH Wing Ribs

I realized I never showed any pictures of fixing the hole spacing for the rib clips. I worried a lot about clips being loose but the real problem was all the clips which were added after the plane left the factory. The hols were to fare apart to get the clips to stay in. By measuring the hole edge to edge distance the bad holes were all found to be greater than 1.245" - 1.265" tolerance. It takes a little care to get just the tips of the calipers in the holes. . Next the clip edge of the holes are each lightly filed with a rat tail file and then remeasured, etc. It sounds tedious but you quickly get a feel for it and I never over did any of them. All the factor hole fit the clips fine as is.

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The clips are each hooked in one hole and popped in the next. When the hole spacing is correct they snap in and hold very well.

There are 139 on the top side and 68 on the bottom. Except for fixing some else's poor hole drilling this is really fast compared to rib stitching.

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Once the clips are all on you need to apply 4 coats of Poly Brush to the reinforcing tapes. This fills them so they don't suck the Poly Brush out of the surfaced tapes. I find a cheap 1" brush with the bristles cut off to 1/2" long works great. It hold enough liquid to do about 8" on the first coat and about 24" after that. It just covers the tape with no mess on the fabric and is real easy to control.

RH Wing Fabric Clips

This evening I started putting on reinforcing tapes and installing the clips which hold the fabric to the ribs. It was going well until the sun went down. I guess I'll have to add lights to the tent now that summer and the mosquitos are gone. I did find the same problem with this wing, as on the left wing, with the clips which were added in the field. The hole spacing is too wide to properly install the clips. A little work measuring of the hole spacing and filing solves the problem but it does take time. I don't want to over do it so I file a little and recheck the measurement. As soon as they're in the spec they fit fine.

RH Wing Shrinking & Poly Brush

On the LH wing the outboard seam did not come out straight. It was bowed in towards the root 3/4" in the middle on the top and bottom. I had followed the directions for shrinking an envelope which said to start at the seams and slowly work away from them to keep them straight. It made sense but only worked on the inboard seam. This time I looked to see if I could figure out why and prevent it. I realized the extra fabric around the nav light was probably the cause. The envelope fit tight at the last rib where the metal tip starts. From there outboard it was very loose. I started at the seams with a quick 250 degree shrink on them and the rib bays each side of the seam just to take out a little slack but not enough to pull the fabric tight. I then went to the tip and worked like a fan shape from the nav light inboard on the top and bottom. I worked this just enough to get rid of the slack and pull the fabric so it touched the edge of the tip with no big wrinkles.

Then I went back to the seams and did a slow shrink all the way along each seam. This was to pull them tight cordwise to help resist spanwise movement. From there I followed the original procedure of shrinking out from the seam doing one bay on each side then flipping to do the other side. Do another set and repeat

With the wing tight the seam is as straight as it was sewn, much better.

The wing is now ready to cut just enough to get the strut fittings to slide through. It looks strange to leave tents around such things while shrinking but it's much easier to get the cuts in the right spot.

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The cut fabric was glued to the spar and fitting plate. The gas tank filler and sump holes were also cut and the fabric glued down. Once the glue dries its easy to shrink around the spots to remove the slack.

The fabric was the shrunk at 350 degrees and the first coat of polybrush applied. It always looks strange at this point, with visible drips on the inside, but comes out very smooth.

We're ready for reinforcing tapes and rib clips but we've lost the sun light and I'm tired.

Fabric On RH Wing

The rain finally ended. The slip cover is on the wing ready for gluing. We pulled the cover snug with some spring clamps holding the fabric at the root end. This allowed us to get it close enough to final position to cut the hole at the light for the tip stand. The root was glued first with that end setting on a table. It was easier than working around the stand. Once the root was done it went back on the stand for easy flipping. . . . . . . . . . The aileron cutout and rear strut access were next and the trailing edge of the tip last. It's now ready for shrinking. It looks loose but the fit is just about perfect except right at the tip where it could have been sewn to a better shape. There is about 1" of extra material around the nav light.