We finally removed all masking and protective wrap from the fuselage and got a good look at the two-tone paint job. Looks great and we are very happy with the results. We are planning on adding a 1" stripe between the white and orange, but that won't be applied until later.
We installed the landing gear brackets, and had planned on immediately installing the landing gear so that we could get the plane on wheels again, but ran into a minor issue. The bolts we have on hand are slightly too short. We ordered some longer bolts and will install it when they arrive.
In the meantime, we decided to install rivnuts (rivet nuts) for the front aluminum panels located on the front-sides of the fuselage. We up-drilled holes in several (24) of the steel fuselage tabs to accept the rivnuts, deburred the holes, and then installed the rivnuts with a puller. We also added a little epoxy when installing the rivnuts which was a recommendation we got from Kitplanes magazine. This will make them much less likely to fail (break free and spin) in the future. Hours: 5
 |
| RivNut installed in the metal tabs |
Next, we riveted on the hinge for the baggage door that we had previously fabricated.
 |
| Hinge riveted to fuselage |
No comments:
Post a Comment