Ultra Flash Fibreglass repair

I unfortunately became the first victim of our new earth bank surrounding the Cashmoor Field last week (well actually the 2nd victim as Mitch fell off it before this). The result was significant damage to the nose and more minor damage to one wing tip.

So I thought it might be worth doing a repair thread as many people would probably never take something like this on.

Having got it home and cleaned it up, the wing tip was really not that bad, a bit of epoxy, filler and paint will sort this. I have a can of purple paint that the original owner gave me after he had damaged it, I have also recently repainted the underside from black to silver chequers in an attempt to make it easier to see by increasing the contrast between the 2 colours, so I still have plenty of that paint left.


I removed the silver paint I had just put on to clear the damaged area.

The nose was somewhat worst, the front had completely separated and the next few inches of the fuselage moulding was cracked and split.

I made sure that I collected all of the pieces, so it could be re attached

The individual pieces are now re connected using cyano to tack it, being very careful to make sure everything lines up correctly before gluing. Once tacked, I then reinforce each joint on the outside with thin wing skinning glass cloth applied again with thin cyano.

The next step was to re glass the inside, but the problem was I could get my hand down into the nose from the canopy opening, but it would be impossible to see what I was doing and do a decent strong job.

So giving it some thought, I decided to cut the front section of the nose off square, attach the rest of the removed nose section back to the front of the fuz, then glass the inside from the front.

Next was how to reattach the nose making it strong enough. So I made some straight pieces of 3mm glass sheet and epoxied them into the front of the fus to create locating pins and give a joint reinforcement overlap.

I then cut some strips of glass cloth and tacked them into the main section between the pins, then soaked it all in resin and attached the front section and taped it into place. Then I had to smooth the cloth into position blind with my hand up in the nose.

It all came out well when cured though.

Last night I gave it a good going over with coarse wet and dry and a sanding block to remove the high spots and applied a layer of filler, so this is where I am now at. To be continued.

A bit of a job on there Jon. Thanks for the follow on project, good for those who suffer similar fates. You have put thin glass on the outside so after sanding, etc surely it will be slightly wider or is that a very minor issue at a 1mm?

Did Mitch's nose get damaged when he fell? :lol:

Phil Ford wrote: Did Mitch's nose get damaged when he fell? :lol:

No, he just rolled :lol: :lol: