July 7- Cowl Work

We ordered our Avionics kit today and opted for everything except the XM Garmin. While we wait for word on the gas tank, we waded into the cowl. We planed off a little more of the seam where the two halves meet and got it to fit a little better. We made our marks for the 6 holes in front, now, if only we could find the fiberglass bits...
We cut the hinges for the cowl today and made the hinge pins for the cowl.
We finished tapping the holes for the 'rear' glass and I finished respraying some of the areas with our 'spatter paint'. I DID manage to overspray something and got some spatter on the instrument panel. I guess I'll have spatter to remove... It's really amazing how easy it is to get paint where you don't want it.

July 4 - Canopy Frame problems

We had to use the change that came down on the canopy frame, and put the extra washer inbetween the frame and the fuselage. We also used some widenose pliars and bent the instrument panel cover down to facilitate the opening and closing of the canopy frame.
The strap that we put on the rear glass seemed to really help conform the glass to the rollbar, and that was really an easy overnite fix.
We put on the canopy attach angles, fluting them slightly to conform to the shape of the longeron, and then proceeded to use a 40 drill bit to make the holes. We then pulled them off and primered them. I'll spray them with the spatter paint later.
After we matchdrilled the rear glass, we pulled the cleco's and took off the turtle skins along with the glass. We're going to leave them off until Van's reaches resolution on the gastank, then we'll put the tank in with the luggage compartment exposed.
We used a 40 drill bit to match drill, but when we get ready to tap the holes, we'll use a 36 bit since my engineer-partner said that bit is more compatible use a 6/32 tap. If you use the 40 bit, the 6/32 tap won't fit very easily.
The photos today are of the clecos sticking out of the rear glass, and of George in the process of tapping the holes...and breaking the tap in the process...

July 2 and 3 progress report.

On July 2nd, we finally got the fiberglass tailcone installed on the rear, but we discovered that a portion of the stabilator was scraping the fiberglass cone so we had to loosen the screws on the cone and enlarge the holes in order to get the cone to fit properly. We also took off the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer in order to flatten one of the edges...which we had bent a little. We also put in some of the floor paneling in the luggage compartment.
JULY 3RD, we pulled the plane out today to make the final fitting of the wings. We discovered that you need to be VERY careful when installing and removing the wings, or stand a chance of denting-or-worse the side skin of the a/c. We got everything on ok but the flaperon on the right was binding on some parts so we took out the
wing to figure what we were going to do. We used the file and took off some of the offending metal. We then loaded the wings on a traier and then headed up to Cartersville to put the wings in our hangar. When we got back, we took out the rear glass that we had sitting in the sun, and draped it over the rear of the turtle deck.
We tried to install it, but instead we put it in position and tried to get things lined up but the plastic was still a little brittle so we sashed it up with a small turnbuckle type strap. We'll finish it up tomorrow.