Dust to dust
Hours: 3.3 | Posted in Cowling & BafflesDug into the cowling fitting tonight. In order to get a real sense of how it could fit, I decided to install most of the camloc receptacles, leaving out only the ones that would interfere with setting rivets later (near the upper engine mount bolts, and the sensor manifold — the rest I can reach around using my favorite, the longeron yoke). To match this, I drilled out the holes in the cowling so I could use the camlocs to secure the upper cowl in place.
Started fussing with it and after trying a few things and taking some measurements, decided to cut off the flange from the lower cowl on the right side. This, interestingly, solved about 40% of the problem, so it appears that the two cowl halves may not have been true to each other, and I “coaxed” them too much when fitting them together. The lower cowl stands proud of the upper by about 1/8″ which will need to be sanded off, so it may need a couple more plies of glass on the back of that side, still. And, a new flange will need to be laid up.
After making some markings using the spinner backplate as a guide, I got after it with sanding blocks and the orbital sander, which can make this job easier/faster, despite the clouds of dust it kicks off. Called it a night after achieving a 1/4″ gap on the top cowl. The bottom will be next, then the taper of the nose will have to be reshaped, as the circle grows in diameter as the nose is sanded back, and the nice round edge is removed as well.
