20 Jul 08

I set up the butterfly panel for glue infusion this morning and helped Joe with the steering wheel until DP showed up. DP and I mixed glue and pulled it into the butterfly panel next. Everything went well, except the glue cured too quickly, and we were forced to add in glue lines to infuse the whole part. We worked on it until about lunchtime. Our friends, Heather and Tom, came in from Canada, and Caroline brought them back from the airport. After lunch, Hunt and I went to get some resin as a back-up while DP got the 2nd butterfly panel ready to infuse. When we got back, DP and I finished the panel up and infused it. The glue kicked on us in about 25 minutes this time, which is less than half of the working time we expect from it. We thought that the earlier problems had to do with the 95degree heat outside, but the 2nd part was infused in the loom room, which has A/C. We had to do a lot of shuffling around and ended up adding a couple of glue lines on this part, too, although it wasn't as bad as the first one. When we finished this one, we looked at the first butterfly panel and figured out what needed to be eventually done to it. There was a discoloration on the surface of it which we haven't quite figured out yet, but it seems to be blendable. DP headed out, and Hunt and I put 3 holes in the steering wheel end cap which allow it to bolt to the quick release mechanism, finishing up at about 9:30. Caroline, Heather, and Tom were all still waiting on me to eat, and we had dinner and watched the Next Food Network Star. After dinner, Caroline and I came back out and dug the mold out of the 2nd brake duct, finishing up at about 1:15am. Long day, but decent progress.