One of our Canadian Readers Jeff had some questions on the SP-500 wing spars, this page was started mid last year, Word Press allows you to do massive photo drops, Just Drag and Drop from a folder, it gets pictures on the site quick unfortunately they are not in order and have to be manually ordered on the page.
500′ spool of Graphlite, Initial testing showed the material did need to be de-flashed with sandpaper to give it a tooh for lamination.
Tapered section rod layout & prep
De-flashing was accomplished with a DA clamped in 2′ increments for handling.
.some hand sanding was used as well
Final Dull appearance showing the material has been de-flashed from the manufacturing process.
rods where shop vacuumed with a brush attachment and cleaned up with Isopropyl Alcohol wipes
Vacuum bag setup pulling ~26-27 InHg a near full vacuum
once cured the vacuum bag was removed, the white striped material is the absorbent ply outside of the peel ply.
top bottom caps are a mirror image and made at the same time, the rotozip splits them in 2.
another view of the cured caps
setting up the angle blocks for the “C” layup, they are at angles that match the contour of the airfoil vs. the spar in position to make everything line up.
Hardie Board trim was used for its dimensional stability and was tack glued to the angle blocks.
dry fit of the caps, root bolt hard point connection, cores, and under peel ply for the partial molding method used.
another view of the setup
since the C return was around 1″ wide it was made integral with the main C layup. gravity did not pop this small section off the mold due to the shorter width.
another view of the C layup
top return flange section of the mold is removed, black line is for the trim
overview shot of the C layup, trimmed up and free from the angle blocks
this section of the return will be re-worked later on.
outside corner was routered to 1/4″R
re-using the angle blocks and some more hardie plank to make the support to laminate the outside of the C layup
Cloth kits
Outside C layup in progress, some TP helped adsorb the drippings from getting on the partial molding table
curing layup
“Lid” Close out core, insert and peel ply
dry setup of the partial molding
layup from the wing tip side
layup from the root side
a quick splash mold off some duct tape prepped root lid side. this picks up the exact contours of the hard point beef up trapezoids
cured and trimmed section for a quick sanity check
bonding this part to the main C after some careful front to back positioning
another view showing the contours picked up in the splash opp
some quick bridge foam inserts for the internal mini ribs
mini ribs where made from pre made T’s with a 3/8″ core
all the mini ribs trimmed to length
dry fit lid section trimmed off the free end used to position the “thickness” of the mini ribs
over view shot showing all installed mini ribs, they are at the same B.L. as the main wing ribs
Close up view of the root connection
gould aero 
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