Oh nose!!!!

I'm an idiot when it comes to electrical systems, so my electrical system and panel are going to be built by Jim Ratte. He's asked that I ship everything down to him, which means building a big crate.

Call me cheap, call me sentimental, but these are the screws from the original shipping crate. Some of the wood is being used for the dolly, and the rest was used by another person to crate T-6 parts.

Before I ship everything off Jim asked that I mate the nosedeck to the hull, and trim the panel to fit when the veneer is done. Apparently each nosedeck and hull have some minor variations, so it makes sense.

First, cleanup the flashing on the edge.

Measure 1" in. I added 0.25 for a little safety margin.

And carefully cut. 

The panel will be attached to this lip.  

For the umpteenth time, a fit check. 

 .

Then use a rivet spacer to set the 3" spacing. Note the stereo heaters.

Deep breaths, start drilling and clecoing from the front. 

She's got a little bit of an overbite. 

Some corrective surgery on her lower lip fixes it.

Much better. Still got a little hook, but a SeaHawk's beak is supposed to.

Almost looks like she's smiling. 

I was going to use ratchet straps to pull the deck and hull together, but they kept slipping on the curve of the bow. I finally just forced them together and it worked fine.

But the ends just did not sit flush. I'm told that's normal and it will be covered with the edge strip. After these were taken I added a few more clecoes.

OspRey doing her catfish impersonation. Note that to make it fit I had to add more clecoes every so often off the spacing I had set earlier.  

Kinda weird to see open space there. 

That's better. 

And it's time to make the final decisions about switch layout, radio, etc. 

Here's the current almost-final design. After decades of flying rental aircraft with crappy radios I swore that when I owned an airplane I'd have excellent radios, so (this week) I've decided to go with a PAR100EX radio/intercom system.

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, and Go SeaHawks!!!!!!

Road trip

"Hi Steve, I'm covering wings this week. Interested in coming down and learning?"

Silly question. What was fun was how similar it was to using monokote on the models I've been building since I was 17.

If it looks easy...

The thing about building your own airplane is the little touches. Putting the throttle exactly where your hand rests comfortably, obsessing about making a hickory veneered instrument panel...

Several weeks ago Gordon laid the veneer on the instrument panel, and it looked great. I trimmed the excess off and laid it in place while I went on a few trips, but when I got back  found the contact cement had not held. Even though it had been sealed with varnish it had absorbed some moisture, flexed and delaminated from the fiberglass. Damn.

We got some good advice, which was not to use regular veneer but instead use paperbacked veneer, and to use West Systems 207, a clear epoxy hardener. I decided to try the 207 with some scrap, and since it was so cold

in the hangar I moved everything to my home workshop. Making the panel I had been told to lay a slurry of resin and microballoons between the foam and the glass, but it often left some voids on the front of the panel. Since the last panel I made was Ok but less than perfect, I decided to try one without any microballoons. My thought was the manual I had been using was for some foam with a more open structure, whereas the foam I am using is very tight with very little open cell structure.

My theory was right. Perfect pull. 

In the meantime, the scrap was laid up with various amounts of epoxy under it to see how much/little would soak through. A simple vacuum bag this time, I was surprised to find I didn't have to leave it on the mold, the panel held its shape perfectly.

The blue marks are from a Sharpie. Note to self: make sure they're removed before the next time.

Before the next trip I varnished some of it and left other parts raw, after a month there was no difference, it all held perfectly. 

Next will be to make a practice pull with the paperbacked veneer, then the real thing.

Still going...

We're setting records for rain up here, but the good news is the temperatures have mellowed out and I've been able to keep working after all.Trying to take advantage of the warmth, I got the turtledeck carpeted, but it turned into a lesson about how quickly efforts to save weight can be undone.

Tape up all the openings so the glue doesn't seep through

The turtledeck/engine pylon is a high vibration area, and I didn't want to have the carpet to debond from the turtledeck because of it. Laying the carpet glue down I developed a heavy hand, and indoor/outdoor glue is surprisingly heavy. Bad hand. Bad hand.

The carpet is a felt-like material I bought from PA, and with patience it's easy to mold around the compound curves.

I paid for the heavy hand in other ways. If you use too much glue it seeps through the carpet, but if you're careful you can dab it out with some lacquer thinner. If you really use too much glue and aren't careful you end up making it worse. It was far enough back inside the baggage area, instead of leaving well enough alone I decided to try to patch the carpet.

Oh well.....

After the glue dries pull the tape, and hot knife the openings for the pylon structure, fuel/electrical lines and the flap pushrod.