Joshua's RV-9A Project

8+ hours sanding, scraping, filing, smoothing, and what to show — a floor full of epoxy dust; the bottom cowl sanding finished (save for the side hinge joint, which I’ll final sand with the cowls joined), and the oil door area of the top cowl.

On the up side — sanding the neat epoxy is drudgery, but because there’s no glass, it doesn’t leave you full of prickles at the end of the day…

Nearly two hours sanding on the cowling’s new epoxy shell.  I figure I’m about 10% done with it.  Joy.

Started the day with another layer of epoxy on the cowling halves.  Should be ready for sanding on Monday.

Covered critical parts with plastic and washed the engine with Dawn and lots of water, to remove the fiberglass dust left behind from all the sanding over the last months.  Dried with the air hose, towels, paper towels, and plugging in the engine heater.  It really starts to get warm quite rapidly.

Trimmed & smoothed the front baffle, and cut some pieces of airseal, then drilled and punched holes.  I won’t do the final attach of that until I have a chance to re-fit the cowls to check for proper clearances & airseal contact.  Red RTV’d the perimeter of the baffles all around the engine, and filled various holes at corners & such.

Touched up a couple dings in the engine mount powdercoat with the powdercoat-colored paint.

Sanded the rear edge split lines of the cowling to provide an even 1/16″ gap to allow for paint.  Sanded the gearleg cutout to center the leg, by widening it to one side & straightening the lines.

Rolled on a layer of slightly thinned epoxy, then later in the day, a squeegeed second layer.  It’ll get another layer in the morning, then allowed to fully cure before sanding.

Spent a bunch of time wrestling with adel clamps in the process of installing a metal piece for the last 16″ or so of the breather tube.  The end of the tube is cut to align against the left exhaust pipe.