Hello Ray, You have gotten some excellent responses to your questions. I will add my comments as I should complete my finish sanding on my top skins tonight.
Jeff Scott is exactly right about the mixing. I got my resin from AS and they have a sheet on their web site that will give all kinds of mix ratios and batch sizes. You will more than likely be mixing all kinds of batch sizes so this really came in handy. I also used a 60 CC and 12 CC syringes for my resin and MEK quantities. You can get them from any Vet or online. I also used an eye dropper for the small batches. Also what Phil said about the helpers is another excellent point. I actually did the two bottom skins and ribs myself but it would have been easier with another helper. But for the top skins I had both of my parents and my wife helping me due to the amount of flox you have to put down. I had everything laid out, prepped, and the skins premarked so everyone would know where to put the flox. I had also done some pre batches so knew what temperatures and pot life I could expect. One big point here, be sure that when you do your dry test fit of your skins to the spars that you tape down the leading and trailing edges and rub your hands over the top surface cord wise to be sure you don't end up with a ridge line at your spars. I thought I did this but when I pulled the clamps and tape off I had a gorgeous set of wings that had a ridge you couldn't see but you could feel. Obviously a span wise ridge is unacceptable so I got to fill and sand some more! With the left skin laid out and marked, everyone briefed on what to do and especially that if they got an itch in the next hour, it doesn't get scratched under any circumstances. I mixed up the first batch and gave it to my Mom to put on the skin. Next batch was for Dad to put on the ribs. Next one was for my wife to get on the spars and I mixed one to help anyone who needed it. Everything was going great until I went to check on my Mom. She was almost finished and I decided to add a little more flox to an area where she started. It had already started to crust over! I quickly informed everyone to reverse course and scrape it all off as fast as they could. We got it all off but of course I had to reprep everything before we could try again. This is where the ratio chart came in handy. I started mixing my batches so that I would have a lot more time and didn't have any other problems. I started saving small plastic water bottles to use to mix my resin in. I cut the top off so that the bottom was about 4 inches tall. I kept my large batches to 4 oz. I measured 4 oz. of water and poured it into a bottle and used a sharpie to mark a fill line. I then marked the other bottles. When doing a large layup like the top skin I would fill several bottles with resin to the fill line and not add the catalyst until needed. I think I used ten to twelve bottles for each skin but I would fill up a couple of extras just in case so I wouldn't be trying to mix up some under pressure. Sorry for the length, but I have been working on these for a couple of months so it is pretty fresh in my mind. If you would like anymore info on my experience you can e-mail me off net at ste...@compositecooling.com. Stephen Teate Paradise, Texas -----Original Message----- From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net] On Behalf Of Ray Fuenzalida Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 8:13 PM To: kr...@mylist.net Subject: KR> info Hello All, Am about to start work on my Dan Diehl wing skins. Spars and ribs are done. Ready to mount to the fuselage. Have the video re: setting the dihedrahl and think I can follow it. Question #1. When I ordered everything it came with some flox to stiffenup the mixture when I start using it. When I check the video it looks like it has been mixed to a consistency of peanut butter (not free flowing). So what is the formula? MEK to resin is 2%. How much flox? Question # 2. Can I use a little less hardener? 2% sets up fairly quickly. If I dropped it to 1.5% would that buy me more application time but not weaken the final product? Any advice on anything even remotely connected will be appreciated. Any tricks or tips that could make the job easier/better? Intention is to place the bottom skins only. Then will set the aluminum fuel tanks, run wires for lights, set up tie downs etc. Top skins and final ribs will be in the future (hopefully near future). Thanks for the response. Ray New Orleans _______________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://www.maddyhome.com/krsrch/index.jsp to UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@mylist.net please see other KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html
