November 11, 2006

I started the empennage fairing stuff off today, but didn’t get finished really. I was spent way too much time messing about with the bottom parts of the fairing, under the horizontal stabiliser. Well, even then I only got one side done.

I was late arriving at the hangar today too, because we had to go to an auction to bid on a Royal Crown Derby dinner service. Since I wasn’t spending time on the plane, I was determined to win it. We spent more time taking it home and inventorying it. It’s going to be the same story tomorrow as there’s a painting I want to buy too. Doh!

Anyway, back to the task at hand.

IN order to dimple these holes for the access panel screws, I had to resort to the mothod shown below. Unfortunately, I don’t have a small yoke for the squeezer, so it wouldn’t quite fit to make these dimples. This worked pretty well! Look, it’s adjustable! No kidding Batman.

Van’s have you drill the holes for the screws in the longerons, then tap them to 6/32". This was not too clever in my opinion, as once the longerons were countersunk for the screws, there wasn’t really much material left for tapping. I decided to use nuts were possible, and nutplates wherever else. I ended up with nutplates on the front two holes as specified in the plans, and the last three holes for the access cover. All the ones in between take a regular nyloc nut and washer on the back. They’re easy enough to get to through the lightening holes in the rear deck. Here it is installed.

For some reason, I decided to start messing about with the fibreglass fairing. I trimmed it so it would fit at least. There’s some work to do here. The left side is different from the right side! Well it generally fits OK, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

I also spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME removing the blue plastic from one of the ailerons. If you haven’t removed your plastic before final fitting of them, then it will be a pain to remove. Don’t ask me how I know. I ended up removing the outer nut & bolt and swingoing the aileron out a little to help get some access to rip the stuff off.

Mike was kind enough to drop by this evening and bring me some LP4-3 rivets. Sweet. I can finish up riveting the fuselage cover I started on yesterday. I’m whittling down my list of things that need to be done. I really need to be in a position to weigh the plane next Sunday. Thanks Mike!

Something I noted the other day when running the engine was that there’s an awful lot of cold air coming in, even with aileron pushrod boots. Well it’s easy to see that there’s a massive hole where the spar runs through! I think I’m going to jam some foam in there to close that pathway off. I’m sure with the seat floors installed this is reduced some, but still it’s probably better to eliminate it now while the chance is there. Another job for tomorrow!