A vise and several pieces of wood are adjusted to an angle of 13° in preparation of glueing the underside foam at this angle.
This shows a large piece of foam being glued at the same angle as the wood support.
The garage door is closed and a single lamp is turned to illuminate the foam, with the purpose of creating shadows across the surface.
This allows the shadows to reveal low/high spots for further smoothing.
The master curvature template is used to ensure that the proper curvature is being shaped across the length of the tail extension. I look for the same amount of light shinning through, across the entire length of the template.
This sometimes takes an hour or so just to sand small increments here and there to ensure everything is smooth. Use of the template can detect a low/high spot of 0.015 inches (1/64th inch). A couple strokes of sand-paper can easily remove this much material, so careful sanding is in order.
In the process of sanding all surfaces, the template is moved hundreds of times to ensure the entire area is curved at the same curvature. Very tedious work.
Look at the far end of the master template. Notice how tightly the curvature of the stock body work is. Honda's curvature is quite a bit higher than the AeroHead airfoil template in this area.
Here is another shot in the same area. I would estimate that Honda used at least double the curvature in this area.
An end shot showing smoothed foam in the background and new blocks in the foreground.
Notice the hacksaw blade protruding from the side of this foam?
The author glued this section with too steep of a curvature, and the piece needs to be cut-out and reglued at the proper angle. Whoops! Stuff happens once in a while!
Here is the piece cut-out. Looks kind of sad!
Nice thing about the foam; it's relatively easy to glue back into place.
The two last support wood blocks are now mounted in place.
And the start of the foam support system in this area.
You can see that there is clearance in front of the foam block for the trunk to open.
The little dents in the center of the picture are locations where excess glue was picked from the surface. The excess glue makes it harder to sand the finish smooth in this area.
The dents are filled with light-weight spackling, which is much easier to sand than the glue. I've gone through two quart containers at this point. Very handy stuff!
Jim.