Wing—Odds and Ends

There are lots of ways to skin a cat. After getting the leading edge wing tip pieces on, I discovered it needed a good bit of fairing. I wasn't sure how to proceed, so thought I would try an epoxy mix. I had oodles of the epoxy left from O'Reilly, so I mixed some West System colloidal silica filler into some of that. The back of the carton says that it's toward the strong/hard-to-sand end of the spectrum (there's only one more that's more difficult-to-sand/stronger). Well, turns out they weren't kidding. My arm almost fell off sanding that stuff.

So, I bought the 410 (last one on the right of the spectrum—easiest to sand). However, I didn't try that. I might try that one later. I ended up using something else I bought at the same time (from West Marine). It's in a caulking tube and is made for fairing. It's by Pettit Paints and is called EZ-Fair. I like it quite well. It's pretty easy to use and much easier to sand.

Some people also use Bondo and other people recommend Super Fil or Evercoat Quantum Filler. So, there are lots of choices. I'll probably try some of the others on the other three wingtips.

By the way, my fiberglass work is awful! I'm sure I'll get better at it the more I do it, though. Thankfully, you can slop more goo on it, do some more sanding, and cover up the first attempt.

This stuff was really hard to sand.

This carton contains the 410. It should be much easier to sand. I'll try it another time.

This stuff worked pretty well. Unfortunately, it's really expensive. Seems like all epoxies are quite expensive.

One end of the tube that will help to form the cutout in the center of the upper wing.

The other end of the tube that forms the center cutout of the upper wing.