16th
July
2010
Wrapping up odds ‘n’ ends
Hours: 4.3 | Posted in Cabin & InteriorAnother session of disparate small tasks. Perhaps the less focused building sessions are what causes the feeling of being overwhelmed that builders seem to get in the end stages; there’s a hint of that here. I’m trying to wrap up some odds and ends around the fuselage before diving into the canopy work.
- Finished drilling the roll bar brace for the cover plate, and drilled it for nutplates. I didn’t have enough #6 nutplates to do all the holes, so I left a few easily accessible ones without; they’ll be easy to stick in later, when my shipment from Van’s arrives next week.
- Primed and painted the cover plate…wow, is the spray-can primer I picked up easy to use, it will come in handy for one-off bits from here to the end.
- Riveted and bolted the roll bar to the fuselage. Clecoed the structure aft of the baggage bulkhead solidly together before bolting this on, to set the correct location fore/aft. It’s difficult to get any large tools in there, and fitting the washers and nuts is a trick, too–the tool that I called the “grabber” growing up (I’m sure it has a real name…) came in very handy here, to hold the washers and nuts in the right place.
- Applied UHMW tape to the inside of the canopy latch angles, riveted them to the side skin, and assembled the rest of the latch mechanism.
- Put a strip of UHMW tape across the top of the flap motor housing, where the canopy latch tube rubs slightly.
- Mixed up a small batch of proseal and stuck the NACA vents to the side skins. (Forgot to put the screens on the fuel vents while I had it mixed up…darn!)
- Made an antenna drill template, and drilled for the Com1, Com2, and Transponder antennas. Very handy that they all use the same mount spacing (though beware, the Com antennas are longer fore/aft than the transponder). These are from DeltaPop, and though I can’t yet comment on their performance, they’re reasonably priced and quite attractive. Other users report good things, including the folks at NavWorx, who recommended the ADS-B antenna for use with their boxes (I have that antenna too, and will be prewiring for the NavWorx transceiver…). There is also an APRS antenna in the works, I believe.
- Drilled a hole for a wee rubber grommet in the aft bulkhead, to feed wiring to the rudder for nav/strobe lights. I ordered a 100-pack of 1/8″ ID grommets from McMaster Carr, because that’s the smallest pack they sell; I’m set for life now. I discovered later that SteinAir sells a kit with an assortment of different sizes… I also ordered a bunch of different tie-wrap bases including the regular square-base type and some other useful-looking ones like thru-hole mounts; having the different kinds on hand will come in handy for the electrical installation.
- Spread out a big piece of paper and drew a crude representation of an airplane on it, and looked at laying out the various wire runs through the fuselage. I want to get the pieces aft of the baggage bulkhead in place, so I can close up the aft fuselage.
