Tail feathers

Now to build the back end.

Luckily the 50mm sheets came as 1/2 sheets so I did not need to cut lengthwise to size. The sheets are 2500 long so I needed to trim 60mm off each peice for the stabaliser and elevator.
From the plans I cut out the leading edge profile and transducer to 3mm ply, I used this to mark the profile on all edges that requires the profile. I made a small hot Wire cutter to cut a triangle out of the leading edge and then hand sanded the remaining profile by hand.

Once the stabaliser was to shape I needed to cut 2 slots that matched the angle formed by the long support beams at the back. This took a while to get correct.

The fins sit underneath the stabiliser so I cut half the leading edge profile to one edge of the fins so it will sit nicely onto the stabaliser.

I made a larger hot wire cutter to cut the profile for the moving surfaces. They needed to be shaped to a point. As the wire was longer the cut process took a long time even with 16 volts used. Once the cuts were done I sanded to shape, surprisingly this did not take too long.

Once all surfaces were done I glassed each one with 6oz cloth. A lot of time involved with this (1 hour per stabaliser side). The foam sheets were slightly warped so I placed weights during the cure process.

I sanded and bogged any imperfections I could find. When I finished sanding the glass came very thin, in some places back to the foam. As these parts will be subject to harsh conditions I have chosen to regulars all with 3oz cloth. Once sanded again I believe they will be only slightly heavier than just 6oz.

I spent a lot of time deciding how to do the hinges. The plans say to use Kevlar cloth. I believe this will be messy and too hard to do. Metal hinges will be too hard to secure to the foam. In the end I tried to make a hinge with my 3d printer and surprisingly the parts came out smooth and very strong. I will use 10 for the elevator and 4 for each rudder.

 Now to glass the elevator and rudders. This went fine except for 2 places on the elevator and rudder. My scales malfunctions causing me to mix the wrong ratio of epoxy. I had too much resin and it would not set. Luckily it was only 2 patches. I used a hair dryer to peel off the fibreglass and used a blade to scrape off the glue. Once I re glassed it was completely fine luckily !!