Smooottthhhhh...

More later, but one wing has had the fabric laced instead of riveted to the wing.

Lot of extra work to do, but very worth it.

The Cover-up begins

I finished installing the Berger aileron bearing substitution for the nylon block the kit comes with. 

While I had trimmed the fold-over of the leading edge sheeting, I still had to add screws on the top and bottom to secure it.

Jim drilled the leading edge for the AN-5 strut bolt upgrade.

Another Berger mod, he replaced the flat strut plate with a CAD cut conformal plate to distribute the load better. 

Time for a trip outside to have any wing FOD blown out. 

Why we inspect, then inspect some more. A small piece of tubing is supposed to go here, otherwise the cable could saw through the tube. Note the mark just from the wing being moved around the hangar.

Clear the deck! Preparing for drips and errors of Polyfiber. 

Gig note for To-dos.

The lower leading edge sheeting was enlarged for easier preflight inspection, and for the AOA and pitot tubes.

And Jim takes a long, contemplative look for anything we missed. 

Naked wings for the last time. 

More carpet glue for the leading edge felt. 

This time Einar showed up with his son, Leif.

 

But there's always time for a motivational video. 

Motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLCDdwbsny4


Jim tries out my pair of Florian Pinkers. the traditional tool for  pinking fabric. We found out that while fine for cutting long stretches of straight fabric, they were not scissors, and not meant for trimming.

And Einar and Leif both found out that my generic Costco Medium gloves didn't stand of chance of fitting them. 

But Jim took the time to teach Leif how to shrink the fabric down. 

 My minions are happy, so I'm happy.

It was still a long day...

 

Baby got back

That's the smile of a man with the hard parts behind him. The electrical works and fits perfectly, and after some effort the turtledeck is ready to install. But first, time to get rid of the FOD.

Boom tube carpeted and  glued in place.

Rivet every other hole...

while Jim starts on the pylon. 

Even with Jim's expert advice, there was still a gap at the transom/turtledeck fit. I wish PA would not cut the turtledeck mold so aggressively,  but instead allow extra to be cut after fitting. Even without the boom tube the turtledeck was cut too high to cover the hull lip at the transom. Frustrating. Hope I can cover it up with the vinyl trim.

But eventually, it all came together. 

Power on, Jim. Power on, Steve. :fistbump:

The battery was waiting when I got home, an Odyssey PC680.

Don't know what it is about Einar, but he always shows up at the right time. Sunday Jim and I had unpacked the nose and prepped the frame, and I had literally said "This is when Einar usually shows up." when him and Craig walked in. It took all four of us to carefully move the avionics from the crate to the nose.

The cockpit is really coming together. Beautiful. 

 

We've had a steady stream of visitors, here Merrill Wien stops by to chat. Local SeaRey builders Ken and Mike also came up.

 

Jim's supplies arrived, and the doctor laid out his tools 

Thanks for bringing the Florida sunshine too, Jim!

 
I started working on Ken Berger's ball bearing modification for the aileron torque tube.

Time to power up. The services of the BLI AFFS were not required, they were just cruising the airport and stopped by to say hello. The electrical install went in easily, but Jim uses some proprietary parts and techniques to build and mount his electrical system so I won't be publishing any photos of the install.

Configuring the Dynon System. Engineers want to make it complicated, but after thousands of hours in glass cockpit airplanes I know the Simple is Better, and I'm getting rid of as much extraneous information on the display as I can.

The three most common things said in a glass cockpit are "What's it doing? Why is it doing it? How do we stop it?" 

Moving on, a big reason I brought Jim out was to check over my work. I had a feeling I had not put the boom tube low enough in the hull, and I was right. We had to undo everything,

pry the boom tube up

and cut the transom down another 3/8". Better to have too much material than have cut it down too far. 

 

 Much better. Embarrassing, but fixable.

Some fine tuning of the turtledeck. Trim the lower edge of the carpet off 

and a little off the bottom edge

for a perfect fit. How many clecos is enough? However many it takes. 

With the turtledeck in place it's time to move on to the brackets inside.

 Attention to detail: beveling the holes in the aluminum/ply/aluminum arch sandwich.

I've also been making slow progress on the bearings. Here the sleeves are in place with a bit of sleeve retainer, and left to dry overnight. We may just be covering the wings Saturday.