REFLECTOR: Novice question

[Andrew Ellzey]

Jack,

Don't feel bad I asked the same question when I first started. When you roll your Triax off of the roll the long straight unidirectional fibers should be facing up. If you received and watched the DVD's, it shows that you will need to straighten the squiggles the best that you can. (This will make a stronger wing) This is your clue, you will be pulling the squiggles out from both ends of your wings, the long fibers will be your top surface of your wings. This is a very long slow process and will wear blisters on your hands before you are through. I used a small pair of channel locks and hot glued a small flat (1/4 in wide) piece of wood (tongue depressors) on each jaw, making a wooden jawed pair of pliers, in order not to cut the fibers as you pull. I also purchased a smallest pair of rubber coated work gloves that I could get on my hands. These allowed me to work the fibers from the middle of the wing that were to far to pull from the ends. These gloves can be purchased from Lowe's or a similar builders supply in the garden section. The ones that I purchased were cotton and rubber coated. The top of the gloves and the top side of your hand had the cotton exposed and this allowed my hands to breath, also allowed me to stretch a smaller pair over my hands. You will understand why you need a tight pair of gloves when you start this process. Another question that you will have is how long do you let the micro slurry set on your foam before you lay your triax on. You will learn this the hard way but I will give you some pointers from my experience. The micro slurry will, depending on temperature, need to be applied about 6 hours minimum before you can apply your Triax. It should be almost dry to the touch. "Get help to lay your Triax on". It is very heavy and once it makes contact with your micro slurry it will try to stick and pull it off if you aren't exactly where you wanted to be, this isn't good. I also found that when my micro slurry was ready I could pre wet it out with resin and it wouldn't stick to my roller. This also prevented any chance of a problem if I didn't get my Triax straight, It could be repositioned and not raise any of my micro slurry. Another point about the Micro slurry, don't put it on to thick, this is only to close the pores of the foam and fill any small imperfections. You should be able to still tell that your foam is blue and not pure yellow. This issue isn't covered well enough in the DVD's or the manual. My second wing is perfect, I wish I had either gone to a class at the factory or had another builders help for my first wing. I'm not saying that my first wing isn't safe or true, It will need more attention for the finish work and could of been as nice as my second wing, if I hadn't had to learn some things the hard way. Give yourself a full day for this process, 12 to 16 hours, you will see what I mean when you do your first side. Another issue that I can't stress enough is make you some long sanding blocks and get your foam as perfect as you can before you lay up your Triax. My longest block is about 10'. Just a suggestion, you might want to work on your fuselage and get the hang of doing other lay-ups before you do your wings. Use a lot of peal ply for your lay-ups, and purchase the roller cutter from aircraft spruce or a good fabric store to cut you cloth. Watch the DVD's, but remember that your manual is your final word. I hope this all makes sense and good luck. 

Andy 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jack Prock 
  To: reflector at tvbf.org 
  Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 11:20 PM
  Subject: REFLECTOR: Novice question


  Hi,

  I recently got an XLRG kit and am at the stage of glassing the wings. The question I have
  is which side of the TRIAX is against the foam. The manual says to put the UNI side
  up, but I was at the factory last week and they were putting the UNI side against
  the foam....does is make much of a difference.

  thanks 
  Jack


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