Making an Upside Down Layup

The bottom of the cowl was more cantankerous than the top as you might suspect. I have epoxy on my shorts, shirt, arms, hands, legs and a few places I did not think epoxy could migrate to. On top of the gravity issues, the epoxy went Chernobyl in a modified aluminum can half way through fighting with the first of two layers of glass. It ended up turning into a big blob on the bottom of the left cheek but I grabbed some peel ply and smushed it against the blobs and was able to salvage the first layer of glass. 

For the second layer, I cut the glass piece in half and taped it in place before painting the epoxy on. That eliminated the delay of fighting with a huge sticky piece of wet glass that would not stick to the waxed PVA. The key to keeping the epoxy from going exothermic is to not let the epoxy sit in the cup (can) for to long. Taping the glass in place  did the trick. 

To speed up the curing time of the epoxy, I use two 1000 watt radiant heaters. Without them, the West Systems epoxy takes hours to set up. With them it takes about 30 minutes. Also in the picture below, I added a single layer of glass to join the new nose bowl to the existing cowl. I had originally planned to use a few pieces of aluminum and attach them to both the new and old pieces, but the shape is curved and I concluded that the aluminum method would not work.

After the new parts were joined to the old, I used a laser level to layout and cut the spit lines and pulled them apart. 

Bottom cowl with the splined plug still in place

Top cowl with plug still in place

I've got about 18 hours invested at this point. Lots of work to go... I am going to take the better part of tomorrow off and fly the KR in the right of the above picture ; )