Caroline, Luke, Ben, Aaron and I glued the final inner skin on the flank this morning. It took us until about 11:30am, and it looked great. Ben and Aaron reconnected the weave to the loom while Luke and I scraped epoxy off the nose mold. After we broke for lunch, Aaron, Caroline and Kendal wove while Ben, Luke and I started figuring on the onerous task of gluing radius strips between the 3 front pieces on the nose. First, we spread double stick tape all around the front of the nose mold where the pieces were to be glued. Luke spread glue on the backside of the strips while Ben and I hot glued them to the nose pieces at the corners to hold them in place. Luke spread glue on top of the pieces as we fixed them in location. When the pieces were located and coated, we started taping down 4mil polyethylene film to the double stick tape, creating pleats where necessary to provide the necessary volume to accommodate the large hump in the nose mold. To everyone's surprise, the poly pulled down immediately when we turned the vacuum on. We knew we had a good part, but we chased a few small leaks for a while. When we finished this, Ben went to cutting and welding some metal for a punch mechanism that we need, and Luke waxed and PVA'd the rearward part of the nose mold which forms the roof. Caroline, Ben and I cut woven pieces and a layer of balsa to cover this section of the mold and broke for dinner at about 8pm. After dinner, Caroline and I came back out to cut some more woven veneer to cover the balsa on the roof and cleaned some stuff up outside, calling it a night at about 10:00pm. We will likely glue-infuse the roof tomorrow morning.
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