4 Sierra Tango Building and flying Van's RV-7 N834ST

Instrument Panel

Aug 2004 – Feb 2006 · 32 entries · 104 hours logged

So, this is where all the money went?! Panel labelling done with Pulsar transfers.

  1. Planning the panel Instrument panels seem to be one of the biggest attractions for scrutinisation of everything on an aircraft. Some are basic, some complex. Some look like som...
  2. 2004
  3. August 6 Today, the Proprietary Systems AOA Pro Indicator arrived that I ordered at Oshkosh. I was impressed, it comes with EVERYTHING! Even a video. Looks pretty coo...
  4. August 7 · 9 hours Thunder over Michigan was on at my home airport today. It's on tomorrow too. Anna, Cameron and I had a quick look at the planes when we went down to find som...
  5. August 8 · 9 hours I managed to sneak some time in today too! Quite a lot of time. So, today, I continued with the glove box, and then I reassembled the whole panel to see what...
  6. August 26 · 2 hours Sometimes I have difficulty deciding whether some of this stuff should be filed under fuselage or panel or electrical... Oh well. So tonight I stopped by the...
  7. August 28 I wired in the AOA indicator today, and listened to the audio come through the audio panel. This thing is pretty easy to install. The instructions are reason...
  8. September 4 · 6 hours It started raining this afternoon, so I took a break from working on my study (look here)and went to the hangar. After getting soaked putting my tools away a...
  9. September 6 · 3 hours Tonight, I finished up connecting the pitot/static lines to the instruments behind the panel, and routed the tubing down through to the opening inthe fuselag...
  10. November 14 A few days ago, I ordered the FADEC cabin harness kit, with a two light LED health status annunciator. This will be the final thing for the panel Once I get...
  11. November 28 I found a thing on the web called PhotoEZ, which is basically a silkscreen type stencil maker. With PhotoEZ, it seemed like the way to go, because it's a pla...
  12. December 3 · 3 hours I managed to get some bits and pieces today to enable me to do some samples... Some white screenprinting ink, some transparency film, and some grey primer to...
  13. 2006
  14. February 2 Since I found outthat the FADEC ACU doesn't require panel mounting, it appears that there is now nothing left to go on the panel! Which means... It's about d...
  15. 2005
  16. February 20 · 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 las...
  17. February 27 · 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.
  18. March 9 · 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...
  19. April 8 · 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...
  20. April 10 · 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 glove...
  21. April 23 · 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 pr...
  22. April 24 · 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...
  23. May 1 · 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 m...
  24. May 4 · 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....
  25. May 18 · 2 hours Tonight was nothing short of a disaster. It started of really well, I got the panel final wet sanded ready for lettering and clearcoat. I got it done, becaus...
  26. May 21 · 4 hours Today I decided to attempt to go down my original road of silkscreening the panel myself. So, I dug out all the PhotoEZ stuff, and the enamel. I used the sam...
  27. May 22 I received an e-mail from Pulsar today. Looks like what they have might work. It's a whole new type of process, and it will enable me to make my own rub down...
  28. May 23 I spoke with Frank, from Pulsar today. He's the man heading up their operation. It really sounds like this thing will work for me, but there's a small snag....
  29. July 1 · 1 hour Today, my order came from Pulsar! Naturally, I couldn't resist having a play around with a new toy. Fortunately, in the kit, they send you a sample sheet las...
  30. July 4 · 5 hours We were in Chicago this weekend for the 4th of July celebrations with the in-laws. We had a great time. Our Cousin Jack lives on the lakeshore on the 30th fl...
  31. July 5 · 3 hours I spent a lot of time flying today. I got my BFR completed and out of the way. This Saturday, I'll be flying the Diamond DA-40. Now that'll be a little diffe...
  32. July 6 · 4.5 hours Tonight, I carried on with labeling the panel. This is a lesson in perseverance and patience! While these transfers are initially quite difficult to do, the...
  33. July 9 · 5 hours Today, I spent more time doing this labeling. Well, I can finally say I'm done with it. It turned out really well, so I'm pretty pleased with it. I think the...
  34. July 17 · 8 hours Bob from the hangar next door suggested using some black fibre washers under the screws on my panel, to help protect the paint some. I took the advice, and o...
  35. August 28 · 9.5 hours When Mike came over, he brought with him the GX-60 that he might let me buy. I say might, coz he's all up in the air as to what to do for the panel in his RV...