Gidday Andy,
I am hoping others might add to this list, not critique it, unless they feel it
is blatantly wrong. Together, the list should give you a pretty good idea.
Happy building.
Reg
Tony Renshaw
Sydney Australia
PERSONAL SAFETY
LUNG PROTECTION
Everything about this project is bad for you, especially your lungs, and if you
don't do the right thing now, well 20 years down the track, when your
struggling for breath, you'll remember this warning. Before anything you need a
respirator, dual filter, both chemical and particle. Mine is a Sundstrom. They
have negatives such as weight which can lead to a headache, but they go away.
Also the useful life of the cartridges is to suit an industrial application,
and no doubt based on 8 hours per day/ 7 days per week use. As I recall the
Sundstrom chemical cartridge had a useful life of only a month or two, and the
first sign of it depleting is smells drifting in. The charcoal depletes, but I
have used mine in heavily compromised atmospheres, like over the top of an
acetone bath, and "not a wiff up to 2 years later". I must stress that any
composite sanding is exceptionally dangerous, as too is the fibres of glass
that become airborne as you work with it. So, seriously consider wearing a
respirator when you cut your cloth, and if you have any doubts, do it on a late
afternoon, in the sun, and stand back. Look into the void above your workbench,
in the sun remember, and look at the small airborne fibres. You can't even make
a cut with a pair of finely serrated scissors (best for cloth cutting if your
pizza cutter razor wheel from the local haberdashery is blunt ), without a very
fine trail of fibres becoming airborne as you work.
SKIN PROTECTION-GLOVES etc.
Skin protection is very important, and like most builders you will probably
mature into using less protection as the process goes on. Unless you are doing
big wing layups or any that are likely to take hours upon end, at a minimum you
need gloves, disposable latex etc in boxes of 100. Now don't bath your hands in
acetone cleaning up with these gloves, because if you choose to test them by
filling them with acetone, they leak! So, the message is with submerging your
hands for prolonged periods like cleaning up your squeegees etc. use chemical
resistant "washing up gloves". Don't tolerate any part of your resin system to
stay on your skin knowingly, especially the hardener. DONT use liquid gloves
---From Spruce that seal the pores of your skin for protection. I have it on
good
authority that it doesn't work.
EYE PROTECTION
is next. Get a "Squirt wash bottle", normally coloured yellow, and find a place
for it to live such that "you can find it with your eyes closed". Remember to
change the water once in a while. Safety glasses, or normal ones are a must
too. Mix resin at arms length, which is quite unnatural, but you can make it
habit. It takes a lot more aggresive mixing to splash up into your face that
way. Also, you will get a hell of a lot less fumes.
MUST HAVE TOOLS
DIGITAL SCALES (flick the resin pump idea).
I am the resin pump expert, as I have stuggled repeatedly with one all my
Classic, "UN" moulded wing, tail etc. So, why do I say forget it??? Well they
principally "Kill Hardener". In the storage tank which contains the hardener,
it doesn't matter what you do, you will get air, and it will then interact with
the hardener, and destroy it by allowing the hardener to develop a white debris
scum, which then floats freely within the hardener, or sticks to the sides. I
have tried floating lids, plastic bags inside the container attempting to
deprive the hardener from air exposure, all to no avail I have thrown away more
hardener than I choose to think too closely about. The answer is a good set of
electronic scales, ideally Ohaus, accurate to 1/10 of a gram, to maintain
correct ratio for smaller mixes. You should make up nothing less than 50 grams,
but others will say 100, it depends on whether you have scales accurate to 1/10
gram or only to the gram.
CUPS & ACETONE
Cups, don't bother cleaning them out as you will go through copious
quantitities of acetone, which you want to buy a "20 litre" tin of anyway.
Others will talk about a whole range of other options that are less caustic,
but the bottom line is that the composite profession, and the vast majority of
builders use acetone. Get some cheap chinese food cups from a local restaurant
supplier. Buy paper towel from same, in minimum 2 roll quantities, because when
you need it you don't want to have to hunt for it, so leave plenty lying
around.
SYRINGES
Oh, back to the resin/hardener. The best answer is large volume syringes. You
decant hardener from the tin into a plastic cup, load up your syringe, and pour
the rest back into the tin, with the lid tightly back on. The syringe fully
charged is airtight and a great means of applying small quantities. Use scales
to accurately administer correct ratio of hardener to the resin. When cleaning
the syringes in acetone, this is the most likely occasion in my mind of an eye
injury. ALWAYS when applying outward pressure on a syringe into the bottom of a
shallow filled plastic cup of acetone, wear some form of splash protection, i.e
any form of glasses.
PERMAGRIT TOOLS
You need a set of Permagrit hand tools. There is an 8 piece scroll and you
also need a 12" or 18" long sanding spline with fine on one side and coarse on
the other. Don't hesitate, they are the best value handtool for a composite
project, and if you buy them and don't like them, I'll pay for them!!!
Flat workbench, and I mean flat. Is your tailplane preskinned, or do you have
to skin it??
I can keep going but I'd like to know about the stage you have before I rabbit
on about glassing techniques etc. so get back to me.
Remember:
Lung Protection.
Skin Protection.
Eye Protection.
Ohaus scales
Acetone
Chinese food cups.......dispose of rather than clean......far less acetone and
if you breathe too much of it, well say goodbye to the delicate mucus linings
in your nose!
Big volume Syriinges
Boxes of disposeable gloves.
A good respirator
>
>Hi ,
>I've just taken delivery of the Europa XS tail kit and I wonder if those who
>have gone through this process before could give me some advice on this part
>of the build...
> . what would you do differently from first time through?
> . are there tools you should have had from the outset?
> . what mistakes did you make :)
>
>I think I'd like to buy a used resin pump - any one in the UK have one for
>sale?
>
>Andy Brown
>builder 588 XS Trigear
>Nairn, Highlands, Scotland
>
>
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