Window, fairings, latch, antenna, etc

The left triangle-shaped window was installed.  A very thin gasketing was applied to the inside before screwing on the window to help seal it.

Michael applying gasketing around window opening 

Two fiberglass fairings were installed.  These were previously painted white, and these fairings clean up the area between the windshield and wing root.  A large hole was also drilled in the top of the pieces to accommodate the wing's clevis pin (This pin is removed to fold the wings back).

Curved fiberglass fairing installed

The sensor for our bingo fuel indicator was glued to the header tank in a position that is about 1/3 down from the top.  This is our best guess for position and we may move it up or down later based on later testing.  We don't want it placed too near the top or else we can get false triggers if a wing tank becomes unported during descents and/or turns, but we don't want it too low as we want to have ample time to respond to a low-fuel condition.

We are going to remake the rear baggage walls as the ones previously made don't fit well (holes no longer line up after fabric shrinking), and we want to make the sides a little bit longer.  Some planning was done for this, and we're now waiting for some parts to arrive before fabricating this.

We had an issue when installing the door latch for the left door.  The position of the door latch was 180 degrees off when drilled, and it couldn't be rotated 180 degrees because the drilled hole was slightly off-center.  So to fix this part, the holes in the two parts were filled using a TIG welding machine, and then redrilled with the latch in the correct position.  These parts will be painted black before installation.

Closing off a hole in the latch

Two inspection plates were previously painted, but had tons of dust in the paint coat, so these were polished up to get rid of the blemishes.

Inspection plates polished

We are adding an inspection hole and plate in the bottom floor of our baggage compartment.  This allows for easy inspection of the lower antenna (for ADSB), and the battery vent ports.  We had previously thought that we could just remove the floor to inspect these, but found that it is impossible to do this without also removing some flap pulleys in the fuselage.  So adding this inspection port will make inspections much easier in the future.

Hole cut out in the baggage floor

The com antenna (with its base now painted) was installed in the (newly painted) turtledeck.  Hours: 

Com antenna installed

A few cover plates are in the process of being made.  Each plates will close off part of the opening for each pulley in the wings.  Hours: 25

Fuel lines, Painting, Window, Door

Finished up some priming and painting (vestal white) on several parts, including the aluminum turtledeck, two butt-rib fairings, two wing cuff fairings, and the comm. antenna base.  This completes all the painting, minus a few inspection plates that will be done later.

The right side Lexan window was installed (riveted in place).  The left side wasn't installed yet because we were still using the opening for easy access to the fuel lines on that side.

Clear plexiglass window riveted in place

Fuel lines were run from the left wing to the header tank which included a cutoff valve.  This valve will normally be left open, but can be closed when the plane is parked on a slope to prevent fuel from cross-flowing from one wing into the other.  We determined that it is nearly impossible to reach this valve when seated and buckled in as it is directly behind the pilot.  So as a safety feature, we added a control cable for push/pull control of the valve.  This allows the valve to be opened if it is inadvertently left closed prior to takeoff.

Red pull knob installed next to the main fuel cutoff switch

Ed tightening a stop nut for the cross-flow cutoff valve

The pilot side door was installed.  We found a tiny crack in the Lexan near one of the rivets after installing the door.  A tiny hole was drilled in the Lexan at the end of the crack to prevent it from spreading.  Hours: 30

Michael drilling small hole in Lexan

Orange Paint, Horiz Stabilizer, Boot Cowl, Windscreen, Gear Leg covers

We painted some more parts Ocala orange in our paint booth, including two side fuselage foot-well panels, 1 inspection cover, and 2 aluminum gear leg covers.

Orange paint sprayed on 5 parts

The horizontal stabilizers were inserted into horizontal tubes in the tail and bolted in place.  The flying wires for the horiz. stabilizers were also installed and all bolts torqued as required.

Installing a horiz. stabilizer

Flying wires attached

The boot cowl was installed, and the windshield was set in place.  Next screws were installed along the front through the boot cowl and holds the lower edge of the windshield in place.

Boot cowl installed; Line of screws along bottom of windscreen

We attached the (orange) gear leg covers on the bottom of the fuselage.   

Attaching gear leg covers

Right gear leg cover. Finish is nice and shiny.

The front and rear windshield brackets were installed with stainless rivets. 

Rear windshield bracket installed (with "Experimental" lettering)

Finally, we temporarily attached the footwell panels so that we could see how the overall paint scheme looks and make sure everything lines up right. Here is a nice shot of the airplane with the cowling and panels in place.  We still have some blue protective tape on some parts, and are likely adding a stripe at the border between the orange and white.  Very happy with how it's looking so far.  Hours: 21

Nice side shot of airplane with painted parts in place

Painting updates

We continued with the priming and painting of misc parts.  Several access plates were primed and are now ready for paint

Access plates primed

Orange paint was applied to the lower cowl.  Once dry, we sanded it lightly and then shot another coat.  The finish came out shiny and smooth, so we're happy with how this came out. 

Lower cowl painted orange

We took all the pieces of cowling to the airport where we have the fuselage stored and attached them temporarily.  We did this so that we could determine exactly where to position the orange/white border on the footwell side panels. In the picture below, those side panels are aluminum panels that cover the remaining visible openings in the fuselage.  

Lastly, we applied the "experimental" lettering to the back of the headrack (rear windshield bracket).  This will be very visible behind above and behind the seats as soon as you open the door, and meets the requirements of the FAA (minimum 2 inch lettering).  Hours: 19

"Experimental" lettering applied to rear bracket

Misc Parts Painting

The painting continues.  The main struts were previously painted, but we found the coat was light in a few places with gray showing through along the leading edge of the struts, so another coat was applied to both struts. 

Another coat of white on the main struts

The flap-gap seals are long aluminum strips that cover the gap between the wing and the flaps.  These were painted vestal white to match the wings.  There were some imperfections after painting, so these were then sanded with 2000 and 3000 grit, and buffed.

Setup for painting the flap-gap seals

A couple of front windshield angle brackets were painted, along with the pitot tube fairing.

Pitot tube fairing and windshield brackets painted white

We also hung and painted the oil door and a couple of inspection cover plates.  We plan on lightly sanding and buffing the oil door so it will be smooth and shiny to match the cowling.  Hours: 18

Oil door and cover plates painted

More priming and painting

 We continued the priming and painting of several different parts.  The lower cowl will have a little bit of white at the top, so this was masked and painted (most of it will be painted orange later).  

Vestal white paint on top bit of lower cowl

Several other door and windshield brackets and trim pieces were primed and painted:

Center door trim, windshield cap strip, and
rear windshield bracket primed

Door side brackets and front windshield bracket primed

Flight sticks and seat position pins primed 

The door frames were painted black.  Once dry, the doors were assembled and riveted. The Lexan windows and center trim pieces were attached with aluminum rivets that had black heads to match the paint.

The door frames were painted black

The front and rear trim pieces were painted vestal white.  The windshield front angle brackets were also (attempted to be) painted vestal white, but we had an issue with wrinkling in the paint along the edges.  I believe this was due to too heavy an initial coat of paint.  This was sanded down and the parts will be repainted. Hours: 24

Windshield front angle brackets painted

Priming and Painting

 We are focused back on priming and painting of several different parts. The boot cowl and top cowl were painted in the paint booth with a couple coats of vestal white.  Residual dust was sanded and buffed/polished off. While those parts were inhabiting the paint booth, we were able to prime the door frames outside on a nice day.   

Boot cowl ready for paint

Top cowl with coat of vestal white

Door frames primed

The lower cowl was also masked and prepped for paint.  There will be only a small area of white on the top as most of the lower cowl will be painted orange.  Also, several aluminum pieces were primed (outside again).  This included flight sticks, seat adjustment pins, plus several canopy and door brackets.  We tinted the primer gray for these pieces as most of the interior is gray.  Hours: 23

Wing Repair, Side panel painting

We transported the wing from the hangar to the garage which gave us another opportunity to use the new trailer.  The wing had previously encountered some damage when a pipe fell against it in the hangar, which put a small hole through the fabric.   We cut the ragged edges off around the hole, sanded the area, applied glue, and installed a fabric patch over the hole.  The patch area was shrunk by applying heat with an iron.  

Small patch added over the hole in the wing

Once the patch was completed, a couple coats of primer were applied to the patch with a paint brush, and once dry, the area was sanded.  We then masked off all of the wing except for the section where the patch was.  Unfortunately, our modified paint booth was too small for the wing, so the wing protruded through the large front door, which we then sealed off with plastic.  Two coats of Vestal White were shot over the patch area, and then the whole section was sprayed with a blending agent (Hot-temp reducer) to eliminate halos.  This last step was recommended by the paint manufacturer for repairs and it seems to have worked.   As usual, we ended up with some dust in the paint, so these areas were sanded and then we polished that whole section.

Wing section (with patch) repainted

We also repainted a couple of fuselage side panels (near the foot wells).  NACA ducts had been added to these panels, and our previous attempt to paint them outside with a small paint gun did not turn out well, so we just sanded them and reshot them with paint in the paint booth.  We still need to fix a few issues (as usual) with dust in the paint, but overall they are looking decent.  The bottom of these panels will eventually be painted orange.  Hours: 21

Painting top section of side foot-well panel

Door latch guard, paint planning

We created two U-shaped guards for the door latches out of thin stainless steel.  To bend the metal precisely, we created a jig made of wood, and pushed the metal into a channel with a metal bar to create the U-shape.  This worked well.  Below is a picture where we were testing the jig with a piece of aluminum first.

Testing the jig

We also spent some time planning on how we are going to paint the cowling, and where exactly we will place the from white to orange.  Hours: 8

Paint planning

NACA air duct work

Made some fancy holes in the two aluminum side panels to match the profile of our small plastic NACA air ducts.

Hole cut for NACA duct

The two NACA ducts themselves were primed and painted white.

Ducts painted white

Had issues with the paint on one of the side panels.  After cutting the hole, the paint lifted and had a nice tear.  Looks like the primer didn't hold well in this area, so I had some fix work to do.  

Paint peeled up

The area was sanded and re-primed it with a different brand of metal primer (Polyfiber).  Tried to touch up the white paint with an airbrush, but it didn't come out very smooth, so I'll just sand and repaint it later when we paint some of the other unfinished parts, such as the cowl or turtledeck.   Hours: 15

Top Cowl Work

Work continued on the top cowl propeller hub fairing.  Four layers of fiberglass were added with West System Epoxy.  A peal ply was added to help removed excess epoxy.

Fiberglass added with peal ply on top

Once the fiberglass cured the top cowl was sanded to get a good transition to the top cowl.  Since the surface had some pin holes and imperfections a layer of micro (micro-balloons and epoxy) was applied to the surface.  Once the micro cured a good sanding was done to get the final shape.  A layer of sanding/filler primer was applied and then the top cowl was sanded with 400 grit sandpaper.  Additional cleanup work will be done during the final preparations for paint.

Top Cowl with Prop hub fairing

The top of the firewall is sealed to the boot cowl with a silicone fiberglass baffle seal.  A backer plate for the rivets was made from 0.025 aluminum.  Pilot holes were first drilled in the backer plate and then the backer plate was clamped on the firewall and the holes were match drilled to the final 1/8" rivet size.  Once the baffle seal arrives from Aircraft Spruce it will be cut to size, holes punched, and finally riveted to the firewall.

Hours: 12

Rivet Backer Plate for Boot Cowl Baffle

Holes in Firewall for Boot Cowl Baffle.

 

Header tank and fuel lines

A mounting bracket for the header tank was previously modified with a notch to allow it to be lowered.  This notch needed to widened to provide better clearance from the adjacent tubes, and this was done with a cutoff wheel and grinder.  

Notch widened on mounting bracket

Once complete, the notch was great, but the beautiful shiny black finish was messed up as expected.  So the part was sanded, then touched up with primer and some more shiny paint to bring it back to its former glory.  After painting and drying, the header tank was reinstalled with Adel clamps.

Repainted header tank reinstalled

Additional work was done on the fuel lines.  A 3/8 inch aluminum fuel line was carefully bent in a few spots using a pipe bender, and installed on the right side of the plane, running from the fuel cutoff switch to the header tank.  A 1/2" wide Adel clamp spacer was fabricated and installed in one tricky spot to ensure the fuel line was positioned correctly as it passed through an opening under the rudder cable.  We will be using flexible fuel hose for connections to the the rigid fuel line to account for vibrations. Hours: 15

3/8" fuel line installed

Fuel line installation