I continued work on the fillets in each of the ribs and stiffeners using epoxy and micro-balloons. Because the micro will settle slightly, I position the canopy skirt in a position allowing gravity to help shape the surface.

After allowing the areas to harden, I began sanding excess micro and cleaning all the surfaces. 

You can see some natural gaps resulting from air bubbles and the like.

The first step today was to clean up any excess flox and epoxy from last night. I used a dremel and a sanding block to clean the fillets, corners, and surfaces.

You can see the results here:

Next I began applying micro balloon filets. Bryan from showplanes said the diameter of a dime is a good reference. Thats pretty darn close the diameter on the end of a tongue depressor so I used that. Here is the first fillet on the forward section of the forward bulkhead.

A few observations from my first time working with micro balloons and epoxy. You can likely quadruple the quantity of the material. I found a half pump of epoxy went a LONG way. The resulting paste is very light. Be sure to wear breathing protection as these glass bubbles won’t mix well with your lungs. For the fillets I had to mix the micro and epoxy almost to the consistency of peanut butter so that the curved fillet would retain its shape. The goal is to maintain as much viscosity as you can, without resulting in sag. This takes quite a bit of micro in the ratio.

I also began filling the edges of the honeycomb bulkheads and stiffeners. For this, I used a slightly more viscous mixture of micro to allow the mixture to flow down into the honeycomb slightly. You don’t want it so viscous that it completely seeps downward, but you want a nice bond and fill.

I repeated the process for both the stiffeners. I used fast hardener today, and was able to rotate the canopy skirt relatively quickly.

My last 5 min project for today was to cut the empennage fairing into three pieces. This is my next project.

I spoke to Bryan from Show Planes today. He was nice enough to walk me through the best way to do the layups for the bulkheads and stiffeners. I really must say he’s gone above and beyond in his support for this kit. He spent 30 min on the phone and was more than helpful. Combine the excellent service and advice with an extremely well made kit, and I really can’t say enough good things about Show Planes.

First step this evening was to remove the canopy skirt from the fuselage. I also removed all the tape.

You can see from the first few photos that much of the flox leaked down below and made a mess. I anticipated this, particularly with the rail stiffeners, and everything was protected by tape and plastic.

I used a dremel and a sanding block to knock down the built up flox on the underside of the canopy skirt. I then applied a filet of flox to the underside to fill in the missing patches that were either missed or flowed downwards from gravity. I’m very happy with the result. The only area not perfectly true is the front of the left rail which has a slight twist. This will be easy enough to incrementally fix as I apply the layups and eventual filler.

I mixed my first batch of micro balloons. This stuff is pretty cool. The balloons mix in an entirely different way from the flox. The smooth surfaces create a smooth paste. Consistency is much more silky than the flox, and I find it a little easier to mix the right amount. Although I let one application below be a little bit too viscous. Since the skirt was upside down, for the flox fillets underneath, I took the opportunity to being filling the edges with micro balloons.

Based on Bryan’s advice, I kept the micro balloons fairly viscous, and therefore only filled in the areas that were horizontally positioned. In future sessions I can do the left, right, and top sides.

I also put a very fine fillet of flox between the two center bulkheads. I will do the same on the other side before applying micro balloons.

The results of the day can be seen here. Nice smooth surfaces on the underside of the rail stiffeners. I cleaned up the transitions to the forward and aft bulkheads.