Glad to see still making progress. World events have meant a lot of people have had similar issues!  

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Continuing to chase the flange all the way around the body. Rasping, filing, sanding down after curing to get a good interference fit. Still lots of surfacing work on the vanes themselves, but I'll probably switch up to polyester filler when that time comes. Focus on the vanes is to make sure the variance between the high and low spots is small enough for each vane to be a final 1/8" thickness after surfacing.

Weekend progress report. I'm doing about 20 minutes of epoxy work in the morning then about 20 minutes of shaping work in the evening after it cures hard enough to file. It's getting there.

I'm so close to being ready to prep the surface layer that I'm having a touch of trouble just plugging away with the build step.

You will get there in time.  You may just have to spend more time on those difficult areas then get back to general progress all over the surface once it is all at the correct shape and level. 

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

I'm trying to reboot this thread as a sort of build log and I'll try to continue keeping it updated regularly to help me keep my focus. Today is a repair day. I had a part of the edge of the flange a bit too tight to fit but that flange was darn strong. As I pressed in, a weaker part of the frame gave way and I had a full transverse crack run all the way through (top and bottom.) It was still holding its shape and everything was still positioned okay, but I wanted to try to get it fixed. I'm not doing all this work to cut that corner!

I filled the crack with as much epoxy as I could press down into it without fully breaking the frame into two halves. I then skimmed over with more epoxy on all 4 sides. I'm hoping that will give it the structure I need but if it doesn't I'll grind down and create a wire lath to bridge across the break then redo the epoxy over top of it.  

I hate setbacks.
Silver lining: all this patchwork is improving my skills, but I wish I could get them some other way.

Repair is cured and seems to have been a success. The durability of the repair area will just have to be found out over time, but it looks promising. I've got some additional rework to do anyway to #3 and #4. That'll likely happen tonight.

Alright...a huge pain in the rear, but it must be done






...it would have bothered me forever. I'll create a new #4 before bed.

Frustrating as it may be, time spend now making the pattern perfect is well spent as then your mould will be perfect and hence translates to a perfect part. More work now, less finishing later in simple terms!

As you have an eye for detail, fixing this now will stop you being annoyed later if the finished mould or part is not perfect.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

No photos this morning. I trimmed the #4 vane too aggressively and have to scrap it...I should have gone a bit slower for my very first task in the morning. I hadn't even had my coffee yet lol

Oh well. It cost me 3c of foam core. I shifted my taks to trying to tidy up the rear edge of the shell. The original line I struck was completely parallel to the sail panel recess line, but that makes the #5 vane too off kilter. With the edge vertical, the bottom edge of the vane is 3" and the top edge is 2.25". It's a very noticeable difference after correcting #3 and #4 that wasn't quite so apparent when my #3 looked derp. I sanded the entire rear line down to be restruck. Best I can make it is 3" on the bottom and 2.85" on the top, but I'm pretty sure that'll be close enough.

I'll get that #4 set after work and update.

I got the final louver vane replaced, cured, and sanded.
There's still a lot of surface prep work before I'm ready to mold, but I think that's the final look. That's what a 1967 Mustang looks like with 1966 louvers.