Friday, June 12, 2015

Square Meter: Rudder Fairing

After the rudder was trimmed to shape,  we sanded the surface in order to prep for fairing.  The vacuuming really gets the cloth tight to the tangs.  It is showing its ribs like a starving dog.
To smooth things out we will be adding epoxy thickened with colloidal silica and then outer coatings will be with epoxy thickened with West Systems low density fairing compound (#407) to ease sanding.
On other rudder rebuilds, we have used some foam with many layers of glass cloth to get the strength up.  This doubled over heavy carbon cloth feels as stiff as 1/4 inch steel plate, so glass cloth is unneeded. All we have to do is build up a fair surface.

 

No comments: