NACA 66 Special A/BGS

[robfrey]

We conceived the idea of building a liner on the trip home from 2009 World Finals. We figured we could take our drive train out of Vinny and put it in a chassis shaped like the Spirit of Rett and go 400. Then we started playing with different shapes and Eric got involved. Then he forced us to educate ourselves. Long story short, 3.5 years later we are still at it. This may seem short to you guys but this project has absolutely consumed me for all 3.5 years (more than is healthy) and I'm ready for it to be done.
Ok, enough whining. I'm getting back to work.
Today's list include making sheet metal inner liners for the wheel skirts and stiffening wing panels between spars.

[robfrey]

Amazing night tonight. 8 people showed up and everybody pretty much stayed busy. 17 of 19 things crossed off the to do list.
Our welder, Dave Chiotti really kicked some butt. We also got the the windshield hole cut in the body. We will need to wait until we get the body back on the chassis before we cast the windshield flange.

[bbarn]

We have made some really good progress since our regular Thursday night get-togethers.

     - Windscreen opening cut in the canopy section
     - Temporary windscreen cut and fitted into the opening
     - All four wing sections installed at the same time (2 upper halves and 2 lower halves)
     - Tail cone installed
     - All four sections of the rear half fuselage installed.

That means that the rear of the car, in terms of fitment, has been accomplished. We scuffed up the wing sections last night in prep for bonding which should happen today.

Next step is to bond our body mounting tabs to the wings so that we can secure the body/wings together mechanically. Then we can bond up the lower body halves and finish installing the fasteners on the lower half of the car. (The car is currently on it's roof. Hopefully this will be the only time that happens!)

We are also debating on when to paint. We might paint the lower surfaces of the chassis while the car is still upside down. Then we can roll it over to get to the uppers.

Next is to reassemble the suspension and install it into the chassis then get the car back upright. Once the car is upright, we can mount the body mounting tabs to the top side of the wing and bond the two upper body halves together. once that happens, we can cut the motor compartment access panel out and call the bodywork complete!

In the mean time, the paint referred in an earlier post arrived and Scott painted a sample panel. It looks great!

Here are some random pics of some of the items. Once we get everything bonded up, we'll update with some additional photos.






[Edit: The pictures aren't displaying, they must be too large. I'll reduce them and re-post them]

[Glen]

Pictures didn't come thru.

[bbarn]

Something else that we wanted to make sure of was that the wing is solid and secure. This is just laying on the spars, no mechanical fasteners and Rob is standing on the widest unsupported gap. There is almost no deflection, you have to look at the light reflecting around his feet to even tell there is any deflection!

[SPARKY]

  big, big smile!

[robfrey]

Bonded up the wing halves last night and everything looks fine.
We also started to paint the chassis.
We decided to use silver POR 15.
We prepped it like recommended but are still having terrible problem with fish eyes. From what we can tell, there is only a problem where we drilled through the unpicked hot rolled plate. We used cutting oil to drill and it appears that it has soaked into the black oxide skin and traditional methods (wax and grease remover and or lawyer thinner) are not working. I thought this stuff was a slap it on over anything type of paint.
I'm sort of disappointed. The stuff does get very hard though. I wanted this chassis to look really nice but we will have to settle for " pretty much mostly silver" this year.
We have friends in the blasting business so we can take it back apart after this year and do it better. At this stage, in order to make it for Speedweek, we have to choose our battles.

[Tman]

Lacquer thinner is your best friend.

[38flattie]

Rob, you know how much I love this build!

It's coming along great-see you on the salt!

[Peter Jack]

Talk to an automotive paint specialty store. They do have a chemical to add to the paint to discourage fish eyes.

Pete

[Tman]

Somehow I think Alex Tremulis is up there looking down with an approving grin.

[Buickguy3]

    I think the "lawyer" thinner would work if you paid enough for it. [Just kidding]
  Doug     

[robfrey]

No doubt, we could use some lawyer thinner in this country. LOL! Especially at the ACLU.

[robfrey]

Somehow I think Alex Tremulis is up there looking down with an approving grin.

I would certainly be honored if he was.

[bbarn]

Had another good week this week. The wing sections are all bonded up



Some painting of the chassis is complete (the chassis is still upside down)

The two large holes in the front are for the fire bottles and you can see the additional brackets for them on the divider. There is also a cap that goes over the ends that secures via the 10-32 holes located around the openings.


Bonded the lower half of the rear fuselage together and installed the rest of the temporary fasteners.



The "Tape" that is running through the middle of the joint in the photos above is actually the peel-ply layer we use over the composite straps of the joint. This layer allows us to extract the air from the composite layers without causing the strap layer to move. You can use a squeegee to work the resin into the layers, chase the air bubbles out and remove any excess resin with the layer.

The amazing part is that the resin doesn't stick to the peel-ply layer. Just leave it on until the resin cures, then peel it off. This leaves behind a relatively smooth and uniform joint that has a fine but rough texture that you can re-bond layers directly to or apply body filler to with good adhesion.

We should now be able to flip the chassis over and bond up the top rear halves of the fuselage this weekend and continue chassis painting. Might even try to cut the canopy out and cast the windscreen flanges in too! Hopefully by the end of the weekend we can have the main fuselage and wing bodywork completed and start on the wheel fairings.

Speaking of the windscreen, does it require mechanical fasteners to secure it into place or can we bond it directly to the canopy?