Last Thursday was a Bad Day.
If Ron Parigoris felt a little foolish after wasting just 20 minutes scuff
sanding
the wing root peel ply, imaging how we feel. After reading Ron's report on
Thursday we made a close inspection of our wing roots....and we were shocked
to discover there are several faint red lines visible under our beautifully
executed
lay ups.
When we worked on the wing roots a couple of month's ago we read and re-read the
instruction to remove the peel ply. Like most XS builders, our only experience
of peel ply was the green stuff and there was no trace of any on the wing roots,
we just assumed this had been removed at the factory. It just looked like
a nicely finished lay up. We tried picking at the skin and it all seemed sound.
Although the red lines should have been a caution there are plenty of parts
with blue guide lines, and we just assumed they were the same.
So we scuff sanded the area and did the root to rib lay ups....three plies on
each
side and on each wing with loads of flox on the corners!
The implications dawned on us on Thursday and were confirmed by the factory on
Friday. Our only remedy (apart from transforming our project into a boat
instead)
is to spend countless hours carefully grinding away the glass back to this
evil, almost transparent peel ply.
Ron, if you want to swap foolish feelings then we'll take yours any day.
I just wonder how many Europas may be flying with similarly camouflaged peel
ply,
now concealed by a coat or two of white paint?
Ian Swankie
www.gchox.co.uk
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