Fuselage V
5/15/2005 7.5 Hours
Last night, I spent a couple of hours wet sanding thepanel, ready for when the rub down transfers arrive. They've been made now and sent, so they should be here sometime in the week. I'm looking forward to getting them and wrapping up the panel once and for all. I sanded it all over with 2000 grit, removing the risen areas around alll the holes where the paint tends to puddle up. I could polish up the panel now with a paint polishing compound, but I'm going to stick with the satin clearcoat finish.
Today, I went to the hangar and did some lay ups on the centre console. It's a slow process this. First I laid up all the sides with a layer of E-glass. It seemed to take forever, which isn't exactly motivating. My order form Aerospace Composite Products arrived, which contained all the stuff I needed to do the structure of the console with. I got some carbon fibre (nice), some 3.7 oz S-Glass, and some Aeromat. The Aeromat is like a honeycomb layer that you can sandwich between lay ups. It soaks up the resin in hexagonal shapes and forms a stiff lightweight part. It doesn't look like the same stuff Van's uses on the cowls though. Not sure what that stuff is.
So, here is what I did today. I basically did almost half the carbon fibre today, and will do the rest over the course of this week. Once this has cured, I'll see how stiff it is. I'll be putting some ribs in using the Aeromat too, just to help the part stay in shape. I'm hoping to get away with one more layer of S-Glass, and be done with it.
Here you can see the weave in the carbon fibre! Sweet! Shame it's all going to be covered up with fibre glass! Aparently, carbon eats away at aluminium, so I need to make sure it's all covered where it'll come into contact with the airframe parts. Getting down into the console at the front was fun. It's pretty narrow in there.
Something that surprised me was despite how coarse the weave of the carbon is, it drapes really well. It'll form into all the corners with ease. I like using this for lay ups, but it's expensive! It was $42 for a yard of 30" wide.
5/22/2005 8.5 Hours
I accomplished a heck of a lot today, and it made me feel good after yesterday's panel disaster. The whole day was spent on the centre console, and it's really coming along now. First of all, I wanted to get all the carbon fibre laid up. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to take me too long to do. Here is the part with all the CF laid in there.
Next I thought it might be a good idea to do the honeycomb layer. This would involve two layers basically too, the actual Aeromat, and a layer of S-Glass sealing it off. I cut all the pieces I needed to size, and cut some S-Glass to be about a half inch bigger all the way around.
Then, I put some polythene sheet down on the worktable and used a roller to soak the Aeromat thoroughly. I stuck the S-Glass on top and rollered that on too. Then I peeled the whole thing off the polythene and stuck it into the part. The Aeromat is pretty cool stuff. I made a test strip the other day to see how stiff it was and it's really stiff! I broke it apart to see how it worked. Basically, the lighter hexagonal shapes you see are closed cell foam which only gets a thin layer of resin on the outside to help bond the mat to the surface. The darker outlines are an open cell structure which soaks up the resin. Once this is sandwiched into a part, the whole thing becomes super stiff and light. I was impressed. You have to ensure that it's thoroughly wet out though, so no voids are in the honeycomb pattern.
Here it is in the part.
I completed all the Aeromatting that I needed to using slow hardener. I figured I might need a bit more time with this rollering process. I might have been able to use the faster stuff, but I needed to mix up larger batches and the fast stuff gets boogers in it if you mix up a lot of stuff and keep mixing new stuff in there with the old. Here's the complete part fully Aeromatted.
I'm on a roll, so I might as well finish this thing! I cut myself some strips of S-Glass, and went around all the corners and reinforced everything. My arms are so scratched up from reaching inside this thing now. Oh yeah, and I ran out of latex gloves, so a stole Cameron's box. Unfortunately, I've used all those too, so I owe you a box of gloves Cam! I'll pop down to Harbour Freight and pick some up. I can't believe how many pairs of gloves you get through when you're handling this stuff.
I reckon that tomorrow night on the way home from work, I might stop in and see if I can crack it out of the mould! Stay tuned!
Once I've figured out fitting everything in there that needs to be (like the throttle quadrant), I'll put some ribs in across the part to help it hold it's shape. That's a way off yet though. Once I crack it out of the mould, I'll be getting it ready for finishing!
5/23/2005 0.5 Hours
I stopped by the hangar as promised this evening on my way home, and sure enough, the part was ready! First I removed the front portion of the mould. It came off very easily. Next up was the harder part. I got the sides separated very easily, and I tried to break it free using the same technique as when I removed the mould from the plug. It wasn't budging. I knew I had to free up the top surfaces, so I bashed them with a piece of wood. I could see through the mould where it separated. Then, I just rotated the mould off the part no problem! Amazing! This thing has turned out absolutley fantastic! All that work has finally paid off!
Here it is just after being born. Now you can see where I put micro! Stands out like a sore thumb! You can see the CF weave clearly through the thin layer of E-Glass that I used as the first layer.
Here's a rear three quarter. The part is very stiff which is exactly what I wanted. The CF and the honeycomb paid off. It's a lot stiffer than the mould where I used the fat mat as I call it.
A shot of the armrest portion. While the part came put pretty good, it's not imperfection free. I still have a bit of filling and sanding to do, but not nearly as much as I expected.
I was amazed how light it was too. The mould is very heavy, but is also very resiny, which doesn't help for lightness. When making the actual part, I was careful not to go too mad with the resin. Here it is on the scales. A whopping 3lb 10.25 oz! Sweet!
Now, I need to trim the part to size and prep it for paint and fit it into the plane. That'll be a really dusty job. If it's not fibres floating around, it's dust!
After getting back from a weekend in Chicago (went to see England play USA at footy, and see family), I went to the hangar to do some more console work. I got the thing trimmed up and had a go at it with some sandpaper. Now it's time to start integrating it into the plane. I did a trial fit and trimmed it some more. It now fits in there quite nicely.
I also made the fuel pump cover. It's basically the van's one, but cut down to fit with the centre console. It's also shunted forward in the plane compared to it's 'design' position. Here, I'm fitting the sides to the console. I positioned everything in the plane to get the screw holes in the right place, then brought it all to the bench to work. Much easier!
Here's the completed cover.
I didn't really get that much done today really, as most of the day was spent hangar flying! Then I went real flying with Cam. We went to visit Mike too, to see progress on the RV-10, and see how their new kiddie Ella is doing. She was sleeping.
5/31/2005 10 Hours
Today was a long day at the hangar! Probably one of the longest I've put in for some time. It's nice to have a long weekend, and we got today off as well! Bonus! Well, it would be a bonus if I got paid for it.
I continued on with the integration of the console into the plane. This is quite a challenge, but it seems to be working out pretty well. The main tasks for today included getting all the centre covers finished up and fitted with the console, and also to make some headway with the fuel pump stuff. While the console was in the plane, I figured I'd need to have the front face of the console completely removable so I can bury the wire harness inside there and also remove it if necessary when the plane is completed. I also need to be able to service the fuel filter at each annual, so it's necessary to be able to access that.
Here's a cover for the front of the console. I made it out of 0.63" because I was thinking this would be an ideal place for either a fire extinuisher, or an oxygen bottle. Tucked away neatly out of the way.
Once that was all done, I moved on to the front floor centre cover. This thing is flimsy! I had a lot of fun faffing about with this thing! It's impossible to hold too! I bent all the louvres in it. I saw this method on the web somewhere. Might have been Dan Checkoway's site. It worked OK, apart from where the louvres were close together in the centre. I had to get a bit more creative for that.
Next, I made the baffle plate. This thing helped to steady things up a bit. Here it is rivetted in.
Because we have the airflow performance fuel pump, the cover needed to be trimmed a bit as it was rather long. I also have moved the whole pump assembly forward to help with the installation of the Andair fuel valve. Here it is trimmed to length and test fitted in the plane. All the guts of the instrument panel are still hanging out, thanks to not getting anywhere fast with the panel labeling.
Last week, I received our fuel flow sensor from Blue Mountain. I figure that while I'm working in this area that now would be a good time to find somewhere for it. Great. This thing is going to be fun. I know where I wanted it, in a similar place to where Aart & Co. have theirs on PH-VII. Now therein lies an issue. I don't have enough cover to stretch to where they have theirs, so I decided to squeeze it in between all the spaghetti pipework, and make even more spaghetti! It actually fits quite nicely, but it was a royal pain in the arse to get the pipework done!
Here it is with it's associated pipework. As you can see, it's even more complicated now than it was before!
The next issue was room for fittings coming out of the fuel selector. I have just over 4.5 inches inside the console where this thing sits, which might just be enough! I went ahead and put 90 degree fittings in the selector. I decided it might be easier to install the pipework if it does a loop around the fuel selector to get into the spar root area on it's way to the wings. The fuel is gonna wonder where the heck it's going with all these changes of direction! The width across the fittings after installation was just over 4.5 inches. Hmm. It's gonna be tight. It's so tight that I may have to sand a bit of a void in there to make it fit easier. It does fit, and doesn't bulge the side, but I'd prefer a clearance rather than an interference! Here you can see just how tight it is. The fuel selector is kinda flopped down a bit in this pic. When it's secured, it'll be up a bit and level.
This is what the whole sha-bang looks like, as it will be in the plane. You can see, I also did some filling on the console today. Have I been busy or what?!
Here's a closeup of the front portion.
And from another angle...
Now I'd gone this far, I wanted to see how the fuel selector would work out with the lever mechanism. Out the box it came, and into the console! Ultimately, the top surface of the console will be a piece of sheet aluminium, so this is just a test fit. Looks great eh? Apart from the fact that it's grossly out of focus! It's also not straight, but like I said, this is a test fit!
The underside... You can see I have a universal joint to help with alignment. The console top actually has a slight incline to it of four degrees to horizontal.
I think I might go to banjo fittings for the fuel selector here, as I'm not happy with how tight this all is.