|
|
|
Unloading the multitude of parts from "the crate," it wasn't immediately apparent to me that the one-million-or-so gallons of epoxy I needed to complete the aircraft were nowhere to be found. I now realize the reason it wasn't included was because epoxy is considered a hazardous material, and if it was in the crate, the entire 621 pound shipment would be considered a hazardous material. This would have been far more expensive to transport. Therefore Glassic Composites elected to drop-ship the epoxy directly from the supplier, Hudco Industries. Not a bad plan overall, but somehow their timing was way off; I don't think Glassic placed the order with Hudco until the day my fuselage was crated. After a couple of calls to Hudco with promises of "it should be there any day," I finally managed to get a UPS tracking number out of them. Sure enough, it was finally enroute, but this was about 2 weeks after I received the kit, mind you, so I was definitely getting anxious to lay up some parts.
A few more calls to Hudco, and a couple of weeks later, I finally received my epoxy. Not a million gallons, but 5 gallons of resin and about 7 quarts of hardener (the mix ratio is 3:1 by weight). Plus some structural adhesive and 2-part filler compound. Now I could actually build something.
|
Well, UPS had other plans for my epoxy
and drove a truck, or forklift, or perhaps an airplane over the box. I believe their
politically correct words entered on the www tracking page were "Container
damaged in transport. Remainder returned to shipper." Damn! Now I'd
have to wait even longer to do my first lay up. I did manage to keep busy during
this waiting period by building bulkhead templates, but you can read about that in the
next section. Whatever careless act UPS inflicted upon my helpless epoxy, I hope it
made a huge, sticky mess.
