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I had the good fortune to participate in the second annual ‘Gelcoat Jamboree’ held 22-24 October at the Central Indiana Soaring Society near Alexandria, Indiana this past few days.  For the second year in a row, CISS convinced Dave Nelson, master sailplane repair artist and all-around good guy to come down to their airport to supervise a group of glider pilots interested in doing minor gelcoat work on their own gliders.  I had heard about this earlier in the year from John Earlywine (RN) and  Ron Clark (ZA), and managed to convince them to allow an outsider to participate.  Dave charges a flat fee per participant for materials and general supervision, and he will do additional specific work at his normal shop rate.

I had already put my Micro-Castle away for the season, but for this occasion I pulled it back out of my garage and mounted it on my trusty F-150.  CISS is only about 3 hours  away from my home in Columbus, Ohio, but I decided to drive over there Friday afternoon so I would be sure to have a spot in the hangar for my fuselage and wings (turned out it wasn’t necessary, but who knew).  When I arrived at about 6pm, I was met by John Earlywine and some others, just in time to go to dinner at Bernie’s bar in a neighboring town.  After a very good hamburger, a few beers, and any number of tall tales (as always when glider pilots get together), we headed back to CISS.  John was sleeping on a cot in the hangar, and I was basking in luxury in the Micro-Castle.

By the time John and I got back from breakfast Saturday morning, trailers were being positioned in front of their big hangar, and fuselages and wings were being moved in.  Eventually we had four fuselages and at least three sets of wings in the hangar, with plenty of room left over to fit in John’s big DG-1000 at night – neat.  Dave Nelson was also there and had his magic kit all laid out to support the effort.  Dave started out with some basic instruction on gelcoat mixing with and without silica filler, and demonstrated basic sanding/repair techniques.  As we all progressed on our own gliders, Dave cycled around and kept us from getting into too much trouble.  By the end of the day we had pretty much gotten everything sanded down in preparation for gelcoat application the next day.

At the end of the day, it was time for some beer-fueled hangar flying  at the airport, followed by a trip to Bernie’s for more beer, good food, and more tall tales of the soaring variety.  Then back to the airport to hit the rack

The next day (Sunday) Dave got everything set up to spray gelcoat while the rest of us were busy covering fuselages and wings to prevent overspray ‘issues’.  Dave then demonstrated proper gelcoat spray technique, while the rest of us watched the master at work.  Then we each did our own gliders under his supervision, and for me at least this was  real hoot – never in a  million years  would I have believed I could handle a spray gun near gliders and not create a major environmental disaster!  After all was said and done, all four gliders got sprayed and a half-dozen or so other minor gelcoat repairs were performed, all without any major problems.  While all this was going on, Dave was also working with the owners of the other wing sets and getting them fixed up too.

After the gelcoat spray cured overnight, we went back over the coats with finer and finer sandpaper, ending with 1200 and a buffing wheel.  I was very fortunate in that my belly scratches came out without having to go down through the original gelcoat thickness, but two other ships needed a second coat to get the job done.   However, by the end of the day on Monday, all four ships were finished, and we were all extremely happy with the results.  While the others were dealing with the second coat I had some down time, and so I got to fly in Ed Escallon’s vintage PT-26 open-cockpit trainer, and this was a real treat.  I tried thermalling with it, but I couldn’t get a feel for it in the short time I had – probably just as well, as it’s wing loading is right up there! ;-).  By this time it was getting late in the day, so Dave and John and I decided we would stay one more night and leave for home in the morning.  That evening I had a chance to repay Dave for his generosity with his time by giving him a few lessons in basic Windows computer skills – how to make your computer work for you instead of the other way around.

As I drove away this morning, I reflected on how much I had learned over the weekend, and how enjoyable of an experience it was.  Not only did I get all my ‘contest rash’ taken care of, but I had also gained the skills and confidence needed to do more of the work myself in the future.  In addition to all of that, I had a great time just being around a group of very enthusiastic glider pilots and a great operation – it doesn’t get much better than that!

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Frank (TA)