Geek's STi Build

[rv9ralph]

(really wanted to call you Senior but....

You really are trying to make me feel old! Chief always works.

[DesertFox4]

Gary, nice progress. Good luck with covering process.
Great to see you and Mrs. "Geek" at the fly in. Hopefully the next factory fly in will have your Kitfox parked in the line up and Sandra will have her license. BTW, I fixed a couple of your Oratex photos so they are right side up.

Ralph, always nice to see you again. My best to Darlene. Sorry I had to head home before seeing yours and Victor's project.

[Geek]

Gary, nice progress. Good luck with covering process.
Great to see you and Mrs. "Geek" at the fly in. Hopefully the next factory fly in will have your Kitfox parked in the line up and Sandra will have her license. BTW, I fixed a couple of your Oratex photos so they are right side up.

Ralph, always nice to see you again. My best to Darlene. Sorry I had to head home before seeing yours and Victor's project.

Thanks Steve. Was great to join up on you again after our trip to Sedona. Hopefully your timeline is correct on our plane and Sandra's license. Thanks for fixing the pics.

G

[Geek]

Put it off long enough. Ran out of excuses to hold short on covering. Started on the right wing (no real plumbing like pitot tube etc.) with the bottom panel. I covered the whole Laker leading edge (yes I copied Harlan) and with the help of my wife, we pulled and stretched the Oratex to get it glued on to the frame. Then we did the same for the top panel. So now it's all covered but hasn't been tightened. Oratex wants you to wait 24 hours at least for the glue to fully cure before you go back with the heat gun and tighten up the skin. You got to know it's tempting cause you really want to see it done. The wife did come up with the major rule for this - Don't hurry. So maybe on Saturday I'll get to fire up the heat gun and tighten it all up.

Oratex Bot 1.jpgOratex Bot 2.jpgOratex Bot 4.jpgOratex Top 1.jpgOratex Top 2.jpg

[Kitfox Pilot]

Looking really good Gary. Did you heat gun or Iron the laker leading edge?
Good help makes oratex go much better for sure, glad you have a good helper!

[alexM]

I'm sure you did it right, but for anyone else reading: The open areas can wait to be shrunk but wherever that stuff is in contact with the wing, if you hit it with heat you need to stay on it until it's fully stuck down. Above 50C it has been activated and the curing has started, with no way to stop it.

You can't open a can of pop and come back tomorrow to drink it.

Temperature, pressure and time (slow rolling over every inch) - all important. So while you can and should take your time you have to stick it out on each piece until it's stuck good.

[Geek]

Looking really good Gary. Did you heat gun or Iron the laker leading edge?
Good help makes oratex go much better for sure, glad you have a good helper!

Thanks Harlan. I used the iron. Tried the heat gun but just didn't think I had the control to put the heat where I wanted it without possibly screwing up the fiberglass. I took a look at your vids again and saw how you were doing it with the iron and thought that was more what I had in mind. I will use the gun to do the shrinking. You are so right in that you can't beat good help. Sure made the whole thing a lot easier and kept those nasty air bubbles at bay!

[Geek]

I'm sure you did it right, but for anyone else reading: The open areas can wait to be shrunk but wherever that stuff is in contact with the wing, if you hit it with heat you need to stay on it until it's fully stuck down. Above 50C it has been activated and the curing has started, with no way to stop it.

You can't open a can of pop and come back tomorrow to drink it.

Temperature, pressure and time (slow rolling over every inch) - all important. So while you can and should take your time you have to stick it out on each piece until it's stuck good.

Yeah I did tacking at 90C with the iron which was a good number for getting the glue to activate, not mess up the fiberglass on the Laker leading edge, and was easy to control - keeping it slow. The book has a good illustration of how fast you should be moving the iron which made it pretty easy. As for shrinking, the book say that heating the glue starts the activation but it takes around 24 hours for the whole activation process to fully cure. Which is why I'm waiting till Saturday since I finished later this afternoon and don't want to push it.

[Geek]

Finished shrinking the starboard wing Oratex and attached the wing tip mounting strips. Big thanks to Harlan (again) for his video on opening the holes for the rivets with a soldering iron and then while it's still hot, pressing a rivet in to seat the hot fabric into the countersunk hole.. I remember back when I fabricated the strips where I read on the forum that care needed to be taken placing the rearmost nutplates so that they do not interfere with each other. As I was attaching the strips, I was thankful to whomever posted that because they are close and could easily cause issues. Happy with the way the wing turned out and felt much better starting on the port wing. That one is a bit more complicated since the pitot system, OAT probe and the GMU11 are located on that wing and need to be installed before closing the wing up. Needed to run the wiring for the heated pitot tube down behind the gas tank before covering the lower half of the wing. The rest of the stuff gets installed before the upper half gets installed.


Oratex Top 4.jpgWing Tip Mount B.jpgWing Tip Mount D.jpgWing Tip Mount A.jpgPitot Heat 2.jpg

[Kitfox Pilot]

It sure looks like a nice job Gary. Your are at the mid point in your build IMO.