Instrument Panel II
2/20/2005 6 hours
Today, most of my day was spent working on panel stuff. I'm at a point now where I really should be getting it ready for finishing. So, I did some of the last few things I've been putting off for so long.
First thing I did was to finish up the glovebox. It needed a doubler plate for the power outlet and audio input sockets, so, here's what I did. It didn't need much really.
Next task was to remove the panel. Gulp! It's been a while since this thing has been off the plane. Now I know why. It took me ages to get everything disconnected! Hopefully, this is the last time it'll be off. While it's off, I'm going to finish up stuff that can't be done with the panel in place. I can tidy up my wiring runs, fix all the clamps and a couple of other bits and bobs. Here's a shot with the guts of the panel hanging out all over the place.
Now that the panel is off, I can put in the keyboard connector for the EFIS 1. This allows a keyboard to be connected to the E1 so that you can do tech stuff like calibration, update maintenance (although you don't even need a keyboard these days to update the software). I put the 9 pin DIN under the edge so it's kind of out of sight.
Next was the mounting holes for the air vents. The main holes for the vents have been there for an eternity. Now I can finally make the rest of the holes. I decided that due to all the screws around these areas for the main panel stuff, that I'd only use two mounting screws for each vent. I think it'll be OK. I had to get clever to centre the vents in the holes to get the mounting hole locations, but it turned out OK. I basically added tape until the vent was a snug fit. Here, the holes have already been drilled!
Here's the vent sitting in there with the tape...
Since it was snowing like you wouldn't believe (AGAIN!), I had to get home before dark to blow the snow off the driveway and pathways around my house. This Michigan weather is killing me. I wanna open a window and yell out at the top of my voice, "OK, ENOUGH ALREADY!" So far we've had about 4"-5" and it still hasn't stopped.
Anyways, once I'd finished with the snow blowing, I decided to get on with finishing the inside of the glovebox. I bought some flocked sticky sheet from Edmund Scientifics. Search their site for the word flock, and it'll come up. Turns out it's used to line the insides of telescopes with! It wasn;t really too expensive at $9.95 for a 20"x30" sheet of the stuff. I was trying to find a company round here that could flock the actual box, but it was difficult. So, I decided to use the backup plan. It worked out pretty well, adheres extremely well, and is tough to get it in the deep box.
Here's a shot of the box where the sockets are. The close up kinda shows what the flocking is like. Not bad eh?!
2/27/2005 7.5 hours
Where today went is anybody's guess! The 7.5 hours spent at the hangar just whizzed by. It was pretty cold too today, so the heater was on a lot of the time.
Today was another day of getting the panel finished up. The first task was to sort out the glovebox door. A couple of things needed doing, one was to enlarge the panel hole slightly on the left side of the door, and the other was to figure out a spring mechanism to keep the glovebox door both open and closed. The first task was basically a bit more filing, until the margins around the glovebox door were even. I had to allow a bit for sideplay in the hinge too, and a bit for paint thickness.
Next task was a little more tricky. I needed to develop some sort of spring mechanism so that there were no nasty camlock fasteners in the door and of course it has to look like a 'production' item (at least from the front!). I had bought some stainless torsion springs from McMaster-Carr in a couple of sizes and as it turned out the largest ones I got worked out the best. The key was to find a way to mount the spring so that the hinge would over centre the spring when closed or open. Here's what I came up with after much trial and more error!
So, this is the door in the closed position. The spring forces the hinge to push against the panel, keeping the door tightly closed.
And, this is the door in the open position. The spring now pushes the door hinge toward the panel and upward keeping the door firmly open! There is a symmetrical version on the other side so the forces are equal. I even used springs wound in opposing directions to make sure everything was balanced. It works fantastic! The screw is in there (temporarily until I rivet this lot together) to keep the spring in place and stop it flirting out. I was wearing eye protection the whole time I was messing with this contraption! Needless to say, the screw is a wise idea after losing the spring on the other side of the hangar a few times!
So, once I was done with that, my next task was to paint the glovebox door flat black. I'm actually going to flock the door also, but painting it black first will help hide any bits I miss with the flocked sheet. I rubbed it down real well, and rattle canned it with self etching primer. Then I hit it with the black.
Once the paint is all dry, I'll cover this thing with flocked sheet. That's why I didn't bother hiding the rivets really. They'll all be covered up. When I was doing the glovebox, I was quite impressed with the way the flock sheet stuck. Pretty permanent, so it shouldn't come off the intricate shapes too easily.
So, now I have a bit of a dilemma. I need to rivet all this stuff to the panel before I paint the panel. I would also like to fill over the rivets in the panel so they're invisible. Well... Now what?!!! This has got me thinking. Trouble is, the glovebox door must go on when the glovebox goes on because of the way it all works. All I can say is that I can see some really creative masking coming on. Great.
Next task is to make a switch holder for the two FADEC switches that will sit to the left of the EFIS 1. I just made a piece similar to the channel I made for the main switches. You can see the holes in the panel for it.
Well, with all that out of the way, I figured I'd better do some sanding of the panel to remove all the scratches and dings that it had gotten during it's construction. This took the best part of the day, and gave me some pretty sore arms! Some of the scratches were too deep to sand out, so I have some Superfil for that. Here's the first step sanding done. I'm now ready for some Superfil. I've decided to do as much filling and sanding as possible without the glovebox and door on. I'm gonna have to do some around the glovebox door directly, but that'll have to be later.
3/9/2005 1 hour
Yesterday saw the arrival of some Letraset rub down lettering from England. I remember using this stuff as a kid for various things, one of which was etching PCB's. It's not cheap ($22.95 + $10 shipping), but as far as I'm concerned it's the best rub down transfers you can buy bar none. Anyways, here's what a sheet looks like. It's pretty big (11"x17" maybe). The sheet has 14pt text, but you can get different sizes, and they also do custom stuff. Basically, you colour over each letter with an HB pencil, then you take the tracing paper backing sheet and colour over the letter on the part again to ensure it's fully adhered.
Then, you paint it. Well, I wasn't sure how this was going to work out. For my initial tests, I used grey sandable primer on a scrap piece of aluminium. I then applied some lettering. I then applied Krylon clear laquer. Well, the letters practically dissolved right in front of my eyes. Not completely, but enough to make them fuzzy and not very pretty at all. At least they didn't wrinkle up or craze, which means I can probably apply a few tack coats over them and get away without overwhelming the lettering with all that Krylon! Well, a few tack coats worked. Here it is after four tack coats. Clear and sharp.
So, my next task is to do a test with the actual paint I'll be using. I'm not really worried about the basecoat, since it'll be long hardened off. The main issue will be clearcoat. I might try a few different products and see what works best. My base colour is a PPG Concept.
Right now, confidence is fairly high that I have a winner. I still need to do some sort of environmental testing with this. I have a big saltwater fishtank with some serious lighting, so I'll pop the test samples under those lights for a week or so and see how they manage with the heat and ultraviole(n)t. I'm also going to see how easy the lettering is to scratch off. Hopefully, there'll be enough clearcoat on the top to protect the lettering sufficiently.
I just had another thought... Maybe I could paint a base colour white, and use the letters as a masking!?! Even more durable maybe. I feel more testing coming on! What could remove paint covered letters after the final colour coat is applied? Could be a bit tricky, but maybe since they're raised ever so slightly that they could sand off, then I could apply the clearcoat. Gotta be careful with the wet & dry though! Just thinking out loud.
4/8/2005 1 hour
As well as the centre console, I spent time tonight wet sanding the panel. I think I'm keeping 3M's sandpaper company in business single handedly! Anyways, I'd filled rivets so they'd be invisble, and needed to take off the excess filler. I used Super Fil from Spruce, and man that stuff is tough to sand. It's good stuff though, sands nice and smooth, with a lot of effort.
An update on the lettering... So far, it's ben under the fishtank lights for about 3 and a bit weeks.... It's still looking like the day I put it under there. I even put it under the ultra violet light to speed things up a bit. So, looks like this is the way to go. Now I need to buy some clearcoat and make sure it doesn't dissolve it!
4/10/2005 1 Hour
While I was waiting for the fibreglass to set up a bit I primed my instrument panel. I'm in a bit of a dilemma here with how to make this work with the glovebox on. I masked of the area where the glovebox rivets are, and proceded to paint. Afterwards, I figured it might be better to just drill out the glovebox door mechanism so that I can rivet on the glovebox itself, without having to put the door on. Then put the door on later.sounds like a much better plan. So, tomorrow, this should be dry so I'll go ahead and rivet the glovebox on. I'll use Saran wrap over the opening to protect the inside of the glovebox from wet sanding and paint overspray. Hopefully this will work! I'll wet sand it before I rivet it around the glovebox opening to even out the primer.
4/23/2005 1 Hour
I figured I'd better do some sanding on the panel, as tomorrow at the hangar I think I'll bite the bullet and rivet on the glovebox without the door. I'll probably put a layer of saran wrap between the glovebox and the panel to protect the inside, then tape a bag around the outside of the box. I think that'll protect it enough from paint and further wet sanding.
Anyways, here it is after I wet sanded it. I've smoothed out the rivets for the radio stack support angle. I'm still going to have to do some more sanding for the rivets around the glovebox.
4/24/2005 8 Hours
Today, I thought I'd get the glovebox attached to the panel and get it primed, once and for all. So, I that's what I did. First, I removed the glovebox door from the hinge mechanism so I could rivet in the hinge. I made up the spacers needed to go around the perifery to make up for the hinge along the bottom, and the corner stops for the door at the top.
Here, I riveted on the spring holders for the door. Next up is the glovebox... Ooooooh.
So, here it is cleco'd. I put tape on the inside first before riveting it together in order to mask off the inside of the glovebox. Then, I stuck a piece of plastic bag to the tape from the outside to cover the sticky. It's an AOPA bag from Sun n' Fun!
Here it is in the paint booth, riveted together...
OK, my next task after riveting this thing together was the worst bit. I spent forever trying different settings on the paint gun to eliminate orange peel. I was having a hell of a time. I thought I'd about got it sorted after painting a gazillion bits and using up a ton of primer so I set to it. Well, it came out crap. I'm really disappointed with my paint spraying ability. I don't know if it's me, the gun, the paint, or what, but it just ain't happening for me at all. After all that time, the whole panel looks like sh!t (excuse my French, but I'm pretty peeved that this hasn't turned out right.) So, once this has cured, I'm back to some wet sanding. Then, I think I'll take the damn thing to a pro to do. "Here's the panel, here's the paint, can you please paint it for me without any of that bloody orange peel stuff?"
As you can see from the pic, I really, really messed this up. I'm getting all angry even writing about it. AAAAARGH!
5/1/2005 3 Hours
Today, I finished up wet sanding the panel, and took it to the hangar to touch up the areas where I'd got carried away and sanded off too much (down to the metal!). I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out after the disaster with the paint spraying last week! I've been sanding it over the past week a bit at a time coz it gives me sore arms and I need to be really patient to get this thing to turn out tip top!
So the panel is practically finished from a priming standpoint. Next I need to paint the final colour! Here in the picture, you can see the darker areas where I've touched it up. I need to wet sand these areas and then we're ready for paint. As you can see, the orange peel is gone. The rivets have completely disappeared, which is tough to see in this picture.
I need to go ahead and order up some Letraset custom transfers for everything I need on the panel. I could probably do it all OK with the lettering I have, but it will be much harder to keep it all lined up. Maybe I'll have a go with the individual letters first, and if it's too hard, then I'll order up a custom sheet.
5/4/2005 1 Hour
Well, I decided today would be the day to paint the panel! I got to the hangar, cleaned everything down with wax and grease remover, and mixed up some paint. The paint we're using is a PPG Concept, in Pennine Grey, the Pennines being a mountainy area that runs down the middle of Northern England. Basically where me and Dave grew up. I figured the colour to be quite appropriate. It also matches the darker fabric on our seats.
All in all, I'm astounded by how this all turned out tonight. It's nothing short of amazing, apart from a small area. The panel is shining! No orange peel at all! Sweet! The top coat is a lot easier to lay on than the primer. I sprayed on a light mist coat, waited for it to flash off and then put on two more coats to get some good coverage. I didn't lay it on too heavy, because this paint has a habit of pooling up around holes and edges. It pooled a little, but by the time it had cured, the pooling had all but gone.
I'll be wet sanding this anyway, to make it perfect, and then I'll apply the lettering, then I'll be clear coating it with a flatting agent to get a nice satin finish.
Here are some pics!
This is the complete panel. You might be able to spot the area I had a problem, down to the right of the lowest 3.125" hole for the turn coordinator. For some reason, by paint gun gave a huge splutter and all the lumpies appeared. I started painting from the top of the panel, and it was all going so well. Then that. Well, you can probably imagine the cussing!
Here's a shot showing how smooooooth and shiny it is! The bright white rectangle is the flash from the camera. Just to the lower right of the flash, you can see the lens of the camera too!
And in this shot, the nasty bit. Ugh! I was not happy at all when this happened. I figured best to carry on painting and sort it out when it's hardened off. It's nothing a bit more wet sanding won't fix. I'm getting really good at wet sanding!
I shot the glovebox door too while I was at it. It came out well too! There was a fuzz in it from somewhere, but that was all! I have a newfound confidence in my painting skills!
Today, I spent some time wet sanding the panel to remove the imperfections that were in it from the first colour coat. The worst bit was the acne area, and I basically had to go back down to primer to fix this, so it was quite a sanding job. I used 400 grit to take off the bulk of it, and since I'm going to paint again, 400 would give a nice key for the next coat. I also wet sanded the glovebox door.
The bulk of tonight was spent figuring out my lettering. I wanted to try the rub down letters, but my biggest issue was how to get everything located perfectly. I felt like I may not have too many chances to get it right, especially for things like the passenger warning placard where I wanted to space it all nicely and fit it in a rectangular box. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and do the custom Letraset sheet. It's $75, but it'll be worth it. I opened up Microsoft Word, and started formatting. Here's what my sheet ended up looking like.
Using tabs and text boxes, I got everything to line up perfectly with what is on the panel. All I need to do now is send the sheet to Letraset and have them make the rub down transfers. I did a few spare ons and offs for the hell of it. Here they are cut out and laid on the sanded panel.
Today was hangar day. I had a few tasks lined up to get through to make some progress. The first task was to paint the panel again with a final colour coat. I cleaned it off with wax & grease remover, let it dry and then shot the heck out of it. Turned out nice! No acne this time.
Here's the glovebox... It's pretty shiny isn't it? Shame I need a satin finish!
While this lot was drying, I did a bunch of other stuff.