On Monday, September 21, 2020 at 11:13:57 AM UTC-6, wrote:
That entire glider is held together with epoxy, and the fuselage from the trailing edge to the nose is polyester matrix fiberglass. It is *not* a metal glider. I recommend that you keep it out of the weather.

I owned one for ten years. It wasn't hard to assemble, just more fiddly and time consuming than modern factory ships.

T8
On Monday, September 21, 2020 at 1:00:59 PM UTC-4, Dan Goldman wrote:
Hello all,
Wonder if anyone has experience leaving a metal HP-18 glider tied down, out of the trailer.
Any damage to the wing foam ribs ? wing bonding issues ? Corrosion ?
Location is in the northeast USA.
Dan

I agree it will do much better inside the trailer, and it only took me a few minutes longer to assemble my HP-16 than the Ls-6 or ASW-20 I regularly flew with. The extra time was just installing the turtledeck and the extra taping over the other planes.

The trick is to practice assembling and work on getting your trailer and rigging gear working well, just saving a minute or two and reducing the number of loose pieces helps a lot. Assembling my HP got a lot easier after I got rid of the wing spar trailer mounts (glider was held in the trailer by the special rollers that attached to the fuselage), Got Rid of the stand to hold the glider vertical while wings were installed after rolling it out of the trailer. I replaced these with the more standard fuselage cradle and ramp that extended out the back of the trailer. This got rid of 3 loose rigging pieces and removed the need for a send person for everything except attaching the wings.