Wings, August 27, 2006 · 4 Sierra Tango

Well sooner or later these wing tips will be done. I did almost exclusively wing work today, so I figured it warranted posting in ‘Wings’.

I still haven’t made the lens for the taxi light, so now I have finished aiming it last night, I guess I should go ahead and get it done. I took the one from the landing light, and made a paper template. I then transfered this to the perspex and cut away at it with the cutouff wheel. Easy. It’s funny, the second one of everything always goes quicker, since you’ve already learned on the first!

Next was the wing tip lenses. I cut the big lens as shipped from Van’s in half, then set about trimming it to fit each wing tip. This stuff is much softer than the other plexi used on the plane. It’s so pliable, it’s easy to cut it with aviation snips. Beats the cutoff wheel anyday! I wouldn’t recommend making the initial cut it in two cut with snips though!

Iteration number 2378 of 3487…… Striving for perfection….. I found that the belt sander worked well for shaping the lens after initially trimming it with snips.

Finally, it fits! Here it’s held with tape ready for drilling the hole for the retaining screw.

Drilled and cleco’d.

I riveted the nutplate on and fitted the lens. Lovely jubbly.

I nearly wrapped it up after that, as it seemed to take me sooo looooong that I couldn’t face the second one. Fortunately, I never and stuck it out. Putting things like this off means they never get done, and sooner or later you have to face it. Well it didn’t take nearly as long to do this one (there’s that quicker the second time thing again). Here it is fitted. You can see where the lens is contacting the wing tip, coz I put it on before it had dried. I used some PPG Acryliclean on it, and it’s slow to evaporate.

The wing tips aren’t finished yet. I still need to glass in the marker beacon antenna. This will likely be next week, as I’m waiting for the female BNC connector to arrive from SteinAir. It’s on it’s way, I know that much. Nearly done with then though, the marker beacon won’t take long.