I had to stay at work longer than planned today. I still got home with enough time to get the mast track reinforcement block installed. I started out routing out the void. Had to clear it with various planes and surforms. Then I vacuumed it clean.
Then came the hard part. I threw in a bunch of scrap carbon fiber to line the bottom and sides. This will help disburse any pressure from the foil. I was debating cutting through the stringers or installing two chunks of foam. Since I did something similar to Kalani's board when I repaired it, and with the two stringers still in place directly underneath the block/tracks, I figured I'd cut the stringers. After that I mixed up 5.6 ounces of epoxy (with about 0.5 ounces of that going to Tim's HS1550 to coat the top of the wing), added 11 tongue depressors worth of aerosil, and then coated the bottom and sides of the void (with the carbon in place).
The rest of the epoxy/aerosil was used to coat the bottom and sides of the block. I dropped it in and started smoothing everything out. I added another 0.7 ounces of straight epoxy to make sure everything added was nice and saturated. Saran wrap went over everything and the weights went on the block to make sure it got as flat as it could. There was some exotherm (to be expected), but not so much the board was smoking - so I'll call this one a victory!
Tomorrow I'll get the rest of the bottom seal/fill coated (maybe in the morning if I get up early enough). If the wind doesn't come up tomorrow afternoon, I may skip winging and try to get the track slots routed out. If I can get that far, I can laminate the bottom deck of the board on Friday, and then work on setting the d-cell blocks for the foot strap inserts on Saturday (morning??? - then actually place the inserts Saturday evening, and laminate the top on Sunday morning). Next week will be fill coat and sanding. Lots of work still to go...
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