Thursday, April 26, 2018

Section: 38
Hours: 3

I pulled the canopy off the fuselage and counter sank the screw holes.


Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Section: 38
Hours: 5

Today I taped off the area that will be fiberglassed for bonding the front of the canopy. Then I scrubbed the canopy and aluminum.
Then I thinned out the canopy in the area where it transitions on the side.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Section: 38
Hours: 3

I taped off the deck area below the bubble canopy and painted it with a Rustoleum flat black enamel. Looks shiny when wet.
Dries flat.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Section: 38
Hours: 6

I spent a lot of time fitting the canopy where it meets the forward deck of the fuselage. I use a single edged razor blade to scrape away the plexiglass which leaves a nice smooth surface and I don't have to worry about removing too much material all at once. I probably went through 8 or 9 fitting tries before I got it to where I thought it was good enough.
When the fit was good, I taped weights on the front of the canopy to hold it flush down on the frame and then match drilled holes. I got Deb to hold a wood block on the inside when I was drilling the holes in the side rails.
It is problematic aligning the drill bit to the holes along the back of the canopy due to parallax of looking through the plexiglass. I made a hole finder tool by drilling a #40 hole in a scrap piece of aluminum. I hold it against the plexiglass and align it with the hole. Then I insert the drill into the hole in the aluminum and drill. Worked every time!



Sunday, April 22, 2018

Section: 38
Hours: 4

The temps have warmed up the the 70's so it is finally safe to start work on the bubble canopy. I worked on getting the canopy centered and started shaping the edges for best fit.




Saturday, April 21, 2018

Section: 56
Hours: 5

I installed the Garmin autopilot servos today. I found it was easiest to remove the servo bracket from the wing and install the servo on the bench.


I was going to remove the elevator servo bracket but realized that I would not be able to get several of the screws at the back in place once the servo was mounted. So I mounted the servo in place.
 I had to add some washers to space the end bearing a little further away from the crank arm because the jamb nut was rubbing on the crank arm.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Section: smoke tank
Hours: 5

Today I worked out how to mount the smoke oil tank. The tank is designed to nicely fit in the space behind the passenger seat and comes with flanges. I'm not sure if I will want to have the tank permanently installed so I added nut plates to the bolt mount positions. I equally spaced 4 bolts at the top of the tank where it abuts the cross cabin seat back bar. On the floor, I located the bolts as close as possible to the underlying floor support ribs.

Putting in the nut plates under the baggage floor was one of those jobs I wish I had done before riveting down the floor. Unfortunately I didn't know how the tank would mount when I was doing that work. I couldn't squeeze my hand and arm far enough in to get to the two nut plates closest to the side of the cabin. After trying to use different tweezers, sticks and wires to get the nut plates into place I came up with the idea of using a magnet. The magnet held the nut plate to the baggage floor while I maneuvered it into place. I was able to insert clecos and then used pull rivets to permanently affix the nut plates.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Section: 23
Hours: 5

I worked on the aileron actuator today. The belcrank rides on a brass bushing which is captured between 2 brackets that bolt to the main spar. I had installed the belcrank some time ago but not torqued it to final values. Today I measured 15 inch pounds of drag on the lock nut and the specs call for 85 inch pounds of torque combined for 100 inch pounds. When I applied that much torque, the belcrank no longer rotated freely. I spent much of the day adjusting, pulling the belcrank and bushing apart and trying to figure out what was wrong. I determined that with that much torque applied, the bushing had deformed on the ends which caused it to bind inside the belcrank tube. I tried to file down the bushing with out any luck. I wish I had a lathe about now...

I ordered a new bushing from Van's and moved on to the second wing. In reading the blogs about installing the belcrank several builders had commented about the lack of a washer between the bushing and the bracket, potentially causing wear between the bracket and the bushing end. This time I added a washer between the bushing and the bracket and lowered the torque to 90 inch pounds. The second belcrank freely moves. I think the combination of the washer and lower torque helped.

I'll have to wait for the replacement bushing before completing the other wing.



Monday, April 9, 2018

Section: 24
Hours: 5

I spend some time researching how to install the nav antenna in the wing tip. It should be strongly electrically bonded to the wing skin. I decided to rivet it to the piano hinge which will provide a good connection to the skin. Apparently it is best to place the antenna further forward, but I was worried about getting it too close to the nav and strobe lights at the front.

Here is the wing tip with the piano hinge riveted in place. I had some trouble getting the hinge to seat flat to the fiberglass which I solved by using the rubber washer trick- I put the rubber washer on the back of the rivet before squeezing it. The washer pushes the piano hinge into the fiberglass as the squeezer closes the rivet.


Sunday, April 8, 2018

Section: 24
Hours: 4

I trial fitted the wing tip and adjusted and labeled the piano wire hinges.
Then I riveted the piano hinges to the wing tip. Here it is mounted on the wing- fit looks great!

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Section: 24
Hours: 4

I counter sank the holes for the flush rivets in the wing tip. Lots of holes...
Then I fabricated a keeper for the piano hinge wires using 2 small sections of hinge double flush riveted together. I added a nut plate to the back of the wing tip rib for the screw to hold the keeper in place.

Here are the wing ends with the piano hinges riveted in place.

Section: 19
Hours: 2

I pulled out the 22 ga wiring I had installed for the tip lights and replaced it with a 3 wire 18 ga shielded pair and wired in the connector. Now all the wires for the tip lights are included in this bundle with shielding and I won't be using any part of the factory supplied wire harness for the tip lights. Much cleaner and hopefully this will cut down on any electrical noise interfering with the magnetometer which is located further in on the wing.


Friday, April 6, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 2

I finished up the bottom wing skin riveting. One of the more difficult parts of doing all the blind riveting in these skins is holding the bucking bar at the correct angle to get a good shop head. Since you can't see the bucking bar inside the wing, everything must be done by feel. I found the easiest to use bar is the one in the picture below. I has a nice foot that can be placed on the adjacent structure to help hold the face 90 degrees to the rivet. It was easy to feel when the foot is flat against the structure thus ensuring a good alignment on the rivet.  For riveting the line of rivets to the main spar flange, I added a wood spacer to raise the face above the bottom line of rivets which had already been set.

I also used my tungsten bar. I taped on a spacer shim to the end of the bar (top right edge of bar in picture) to help keep it level against the rivets. I rested the shim on the wing skin and placed the opposite end over the rivet. When the shim was resting flat on the skin I knew the bar was perpendicular to the rivet. The thickness of the shim is about the height to the top of the finished rivet shop head from the skin.
Woody was moral support through the last couple days and he is really glad I'm done with this task.

Section: 24
Hours: 4

I spent the remainder of the day riveting the wing tip piano hinges to the wing.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 5

I almost finished up the bottom skin riveting on the right wing today.


Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 5

I finished up riveting the inner bottom wing skin. Definitely going faster on the right wing. I guess technique has improved and I'm getting better at kneeling / reaching.
Here are the rivets along the j-stiffener.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 5

The right wing bottom skin is going a little faster. I'm getting down the learning curve.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 5

Riveting got a little easier today- I could reach in from the end of the wing!
 Here is the doubler plate and doubler angle for supporting the pitot tube mast.
 Finished the left wing!!!! One more to go :-(

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Section: 20
Hours: 5

I (slowly) continued riveting the outboard bottom wing skin today.

Part of what makes this a slow job is inspecting the rivets. The shop heads are all hidden inside the wing so I've been using my iPhone to snap pictures of the rivets as I go so I can adjust technique, correct underset rivets or replace badly set rivets.