My Wooden Airplane
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7/8/2012 - 8/20/2012

Cowling, Part 2

This was WAY more work than I anticipated! Several things would have made this easier, in my opinion. First, the foam boards were not all the same density. Even though they all had the same labels and came off the same shelf, they were not identical. This caused some areas to be sanded down more quickly than others. Also, the boards have thin mylar plastic sheets laminated on each side. This caused "steps" to appear at the junctions when they were sanded. My recommendation would be to remove the laminations before gluing the pieces together. Finally, the bottom was difficult to reach. I suppose a mattress would have lifted me up high enough off the floor to make it easier. But it would have been better if I could have turned the plane upside-down and used gravity in my favor instead of having to work against it! However, I couldn't rotate my fuselage because the engine had oil in it, and it would have run out all inside the foam and made one heck of a mess!

Now that the foam has been shaped, the next step is to cover it with plaster.

Total Time: 57.0 hrs.