November 13, 2005

Today wasn’t so productive really. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do the sides of the cowling where the two halves join. I started off making some Skybolt flanges out of 0.063" and continued to work out how it was all going to come together. There’s a big radius inside the cowling where the thickness increases for the honeycomb, and this was interfering somewhat with the strips I’d made. It was about this time that I started seriously thinking about doing the hinges for the two halves.

About 3pm, Mike stopped by, which was pretty good timing really. I told him the plan, and he wholeheartedly agreed that would be the better way. So, that’s what we did. I tossed aside the stuff I’d done for today and went down the new route.

Mike also helped to get the gaps closed up along the sides so it wouldn’t need to be filled. That’ll save me a ton of time later on, and keep the cowling edges a little nicer. We filed some material from the front area so we could close the gaps more, and it worked like a charm!

Here, we have the hinges drilled and cleco’d on. See the gap? What gap?! Much better.

Now you can see the nostrils are a lot better also.

The other side…