I'm getting better at making panels

  

 

The hardest part of the new rudder blocks was removing the old nylon ones. The Dremel tended to catch in the nylon and could quickly spin out of control, so it was cut a trial of patience to cut them out a little at a time. 

Worth it to finally have them done, and the nose reassembled. 

Another thing to undo was removing unneeded carpet from the avionics area, there's a reason for that we'll get to later. Long hours tediously scraping carpet glue off with a few cutting blades, no other way to do it since the glue would heat up and quickly gum up sandpaper.

After that came running the extra wires for the wig-wag landing lights, something I hemmed and hawed about when Jim built my harness. Word to the wise, just include a few spare wires when you build your harness. Yeah, it's weight, but it's worth it. Tying off the wires also cut the hell out of my hands, but I found another use for duct tape. 

Since I now had to make so many tieoffs I decided it was time to open up one of the windows to make it easier to get to the  harness as it comes up behind the turtledeck arch.Big step to open her up like that.

The avionics tray got nutplated. 

And it was time to cut another panel. This is the 3rd metal one (groan), but I've learned so much from the others.  I am NOT doing it 1,000 times. At least, I hope I won't have to. 

One thing I realized from misalignment of the others was that I had assumed the blanks were cut square, but the were probably not. This time I made sure. 

And cutting commenced.

The Dynon also got nutplates.

One thing on the previous panels that always bugged me was How was I going to repair any wiring problems in the densely crowded area under the radio that contained the backup fuel pump switch, flap selector, gear lights and selector, and gear CB? Sure I was planning to make them removable, but getting to some of them,especially the upper gear lights, was going to be a pain.

So I've decided to make it a removable sub-panel. I could easily make it an overlapping panel that would sit on top of the main panel, but because I like to make things as difficult as I can on myself, I'm going to try to make it sit flush. THAT should add a couple months to the build!

 

But we're on the right track. Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.