Right- long overdue update.
Its not that I haven’t busy, it’s just that most of what I’ve been doing is getting frustrated with the weather and basically tidying up things I 90% completed months ago, which makes for boring forum reading IMO… So basically I’ve been radiusing edges, shaping the cockpit cutout, reinforcing and then radiusing the edges of aforementioned cutout, filling holes, sanding off the outside of the whole thing to get rid of the cuprinol coating, and also adding the lower skins to the whole thing. 1/4” Keruing marine ply now covers the underside of everything. And then glassing the whole lot with at least 1 layer of epoxy and glass, or at least epoxy, to seal the surface and prevent it from going mouldy in the shed. All the right angles are either radiused to 6mm, or filleted to same depending on wether they’re external or internal. So folding the cloth round the edges has been very successful, and as a result the Unibody structure as a whole is strong, waterproof, and as a bonus the ply skins are totally bonded to the underlying framework. Result!
The test piece of birch ply I left untreated a year ago is now totally black with mould, it’s minging. I should prolly bin it, it is almost certainly a health hazard.
So anyways, the existing structure is now finally mould proof, and I’ve also added another torsion box behind the front grill, and changed the way the grill mounts. It’s bonded in with epoxy, and reinforced with more glass tape and epoxy, as now are all the other torsion boxes in the structure. Nice.
Next job is epoxying some stainless bushes into all the subframe mounting holes, to stop the mounting bolts from wallowing around and oval-ing the wood. Then glueing all the wooden faux louvres onto the bonnet and scuttle, more filling, and yet more epoxy and glass if the weather permits, but tbh I dont think ill be doing any more glassing till springtime now, itll just be too cold and wet outside… same maybe goes for fibreglass primer. I’ll just leave it woody looking till springtime.
Anyways. Even if it will look like a mobile rabbit hutch, it’ll be fuelproof and waterproof enough to bolt the engine and brakes in and take it for a test spin round the farm next month. Yay!