Off to Oshkosh

I have flown my little Quickie into Oshkosh 19 times and this year was to be the 20th. Oh well.

Sandy will be missing the big event. Since I wasn't planning on going, she made other plans.

I was pretty much resigned to skipping it all together this year, when Ken Robinson came along and asked me if I would like to fly his 1955 C-182 up to Wisconsin. Ken has been the benefactor of the SIU aerobatic team. Just to sweeten the pot, he is throwing in an armband.

So, how could I say no? I'll be tenting under the wing of the C-182 for a couple nights, then I'll transition to a hotel room with Rich Gibson and the Pyro crew.

One of the best things about having Race 22 at Oshkosh is just hanging around my plane and see who shows up. I get to see old friends, remote Quickie builders, former students and others - I'll miss that this year.

But, like the Chicago Cubs - Wait till next year!

The Sands of Southern Illinois

The coating of gray primer really helps you to see what needs to be sanded next.

Small Update

Just another photo or two of the filler.

I went around with my sanding grinder and knocked off most of the high spots and clumps. (Making lots of dust!). I went to Wal-Mart and got a couple cans of cheap gray primer and sprayed the fuselage. I found this is a big help to find the low spots while sanding. I would have preferred a darker primer, but I didn't want to chase around for it.

I think I'm beginning to develop "sander's elbow".

Getting ready for paint - again

So now that I'm committed, I may as well jump in with both feet. SIU has been a great resource, and even though I'm back in my own hangar, I'm able to tap in. This time I was able to hire one of the AvTech student workers to help do my dirty work. Corey Steinkoenig has been a big help.

I had to do some clean-up inside the tail cone, to we tied it to the door and lowered the cone over Corey. That worked well - especially for me.



The rest of the day was spend preparing the fuselage for a major filling operation.





The second day, We applied the filler. We used the West system with the slow hardener. Good thing, since the temperature was 95 degrees F in the hangar. We could actually feel the micro start to exotherm as soon as it was mixed and we really had to work quickly.

The Prime Directive of the filling process is "Put it on once, sand it off once". I think we got it on thick enough.

Changing the Angle of the Dangle

A zillion years ago the Quickie community struggled with ground handling issues. All sorts of things were blamed, including "deck angle". People thought handling issues could be corrected by changing the tailwheel bracket or tail spring to raise the tail and thus reduce the deck angle.

Well, it turned out the real culprit was the main wheel alignment. This was expounded upon by a fellow named David Gall in what is now called "The Gall Alignment" and is a whole other topic.

If you look at older photos of my plane, you can see that the tail spring angles downward. All this really accomplishes is to increase drag and this will be the best time to correct it. It's pretty simple surgery and no time like the present. I did have to relocate the lower rudder phenolic bearing, but that was pretty easy, too.

Dorsal Fin

On the spur of the moment, I decided to add a little dorsal fairing. Pretty simple and quick. I just got an old block of foam and notched it to kind of fit the vertical fin. I always start with a block much larger than I think I'll need. I mixed a little TAP plastics X-30 foam and brushed it on the foam and on the fuselage, then jammed it in place.

After it set for in place for about 15 minutes, I broke out Mr. Sawzall and started carving away. I'll put one layer of BID over it, and I'll be done!

Taking It All Off!

Again, using chemical stripper I took off the top layer of paint, then used a sanding die grinder to take off the filler.

All of this reveals the scars and previous modifications of days past.

See the Hangar Heaters poster ? (As always, click on photo to enlarge). That gal has been keeping my hangar warm for over 20 years. She might even be a grandma by now.

Stripping act

I start going after the paint, using both chemical and mechanical means. The old lacquer paint is really hard to dig through. It gets really gummy when the sander/grinder heats it up.

I got some stripper from an automotive shop that works well. I don't need to use the chemical down to the fiberglass, I just want to get through the top coat. I put it on, let it sit for five minutes, then scrape it off. I immediately sponge it down with water, then I use mineral spirits on it to remove the residual parafins in the stripper.

This is a really crummy job and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

"Why don't you just paint the whole plane"?

About a hundred people have asked; "Why don't you just paint the whole thing?" The answer; "I really don't want to".

Way back in 1985 when I was in the filling process for this plane, I shared a hangar with a guy that was an authorized Quickie Aircraft dealer. He had built a plane and was my "expert".

One of the main tasks of the finishing process is mixing up dry micro and laying it on the wings and everything to make a smooth surface and be ready for paint. This hangar was in Minnesota and curing temperatures was always an issue. The normal cure time for epoxy-based dry micro was 24 hours if the temp was 72F or higher. If we could only maintain 62F, it could take days to cure.

Well this guy said said he found some stuff that you could use and it would set up right away! He got it at a hobby store in gallon containers and there was a small bottle of hardener that you mixed with it. Since it cured quickly, we would mix microballoons with the resin and when that was ready we would add the hardener and lay it on the fiberglass surfaces. It would harden quick enough in an hour to be able to get back to work.

Well, I had shit for brains so it seemed like a good idea at the time. What I didn't know was, we were using a polyester resin, similar to "Bondo". It seemed fine until four or five years later when the resin started to crack. And it cracked. And it cracked. And it cracked. I had finish cracks all over the plane; on the fuselage, on the canard, and it also caused depressions in the underside of the rear wing.

Over the years, some of this has been corrected, some not. Fast forward to 2008 and I now have to paint the new wing and cowl. I really didn't want to paint the whole plane, since I knew I would have to remove the paint, then dig out all the old polyester micro - and I really didn't want to do all that.

Having said all that, I now accept the fact that I won't be making it to Oshkosh this year. Spot painting will probably look goofy, and there are still all those places where the filler is cracked.

So, I guess I'm going to paint most of the whole thing.

Rats.

Trying to get the cowling finished.

Well, my brother Rob is gone and I'm once again left to my own devices. It sometimes takes a lot of will to take up another damned piece of sand paper and keep at it. I have no doubt that it takes longer to make mods that it takes to build the first time.

A few days ago I smeared on West epoxy/micro, so I may as well work on that one. I first hit it with my Stanley Surform file to knock off the high spots. I thought I'd try something new, to help me see where I was, so I sprayed the lower cowl with the remnants of an old can of gray primer that I had laying around.

As I worked at it, the primer did a nice job of showing me where the remaining low spots were. I did the same thing with my upper wing using a pencil.

I'm not crazy about the large protrusions around the exhaust exits - but screw it. Maybe next year I'll totally revamp the exhaust and modify the cowl to suit.

Or maybe I'll take up golf.

I Hate Painting

The final finishing process is the one I really hate. I guess it's because that I don't know what I'm doing and because it exposes flaws.

Rob has a lot more experience and he was really happy to use the SIU AvTech paint booth. For this trip, we were only able to get paint on the elevators and ailerons.

Cascades of Dust

I was able to convince my little brother, Rob, to ride his Harley down and help with painting the new wing, cowl, etc. Everyone said I should just repaint the whole thing, but that I not a job I really want to take on.

Rob has a lot of experience painting motorcycles and recently took first place in a show in the Chicago area.

We are going to paint it in the brand new spray booth at SIU, but they won't be open on the upcoming 4th of July - so we are in a rush to get done what we can.

Exhaust & Cowling

In order to streamline everything better, I had to change how the exhaust exits the cowling. Unfortunately, I don't have those welding skills or the equipment. Fortunately, I met a fellow that had both. Don Bartlett is an engineer who has returned to school to get his A&P at SIU. I asked if he could help and he foolishly agreed.

I figured it would be a Saturday morning type job and we would be finished by noon. Wouldn't you know, we (he) wrapped it up by 7:00 P.M.

Sandy came out to provide hors d'oeuvres and adult beverages to celebrate the completion of the stacks. As Sandy conducted her investigative inquisition to learn all things about all people, we learned that Don and I went to different schools together.

I went to Libertyville High School and Don went to Carmel H.S., just a couple miles down the road. We both graduated in 1968 and had several mutual friends. "Small world" strikes again.

The next day I glued some foam onto the lower cowl and started shaping the outlets.