Seat foam / rudder sanding

I did some trimming on Sandi's seat foam in the cut-out area for the stick. I'll drop it off tomorrow for covering.

Sanded the filler on rudder top and bottom tips that I put on weeks ago. One more layer and it should be good and then I need to do the other side.

(Time: 1 hr)

Prepping for show and tell...

Dropped off the seat foam... they'll start on Thursday.. maybe I'll have them next week??

With Sandi needing to sit farther forward, I knew we would need to modify her stick some. I bought some PVC pipe to create a mock-up. Basically we need to offset the stick about 3" forward. I'll have a custom stick made that comes up out of the receptacle, then bends forward 3", and then comes straight up from there. My PVC mock up looks good. When we get the seats back I'll be able to test to see if it works or not.

We are having our friends and family gathering this Saturday afternoon and everyone is asking about the plane, so I'm getting it ready for show and tell. The plan is to roll it outside and put it together so people can see that it is a real airplane. So I spent an hour or so last night washing the inside, vacumming it all out. I installed the baggage walls and side covers. I have some interference with the top baggage wall and one of the angles that hold the channel to the 906 bulkhead, I'll have to do a little filing. I installed the rear window. The canopy is still on. I need to mount the instruments and install the radios. I have to pull the tail off to get it out but that will be quick and it will be easy to put it back on.

Seat foam

I ordered my seat foam from Hi-Tech Foams (www.seatfoam.com) I thought it was all pre-cut and sized, though I knew it wasn't glued together. Turns out that it wasn't precut to size, they just provide you plenty of raw material and you get to do the rest.

So two weekends ago I put Sandi to work cutting the foam. She didn't get quite finished so last night I finished cutting the foam and making the booster cushions that go underneath.

For my seat I used a piece of 2" firm foam on the bottom, shaped to the seat pan. On top of that are 3 - 1" layers of temper foam... firm, medium and then soft. The seat back is 2"... medium and soft.

Sandi's seat foam was a bit more of a challenge as I needed to get her sitting a little higher and more forward. After numerous test sittings in and out of plane, we finally got what she needed and what felt good.

So tomorrow on the way home we will drop off the foam to get covered!

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Strobe light repair.. rudder fairings

I re-epoxied the nut for the strobe light in the rudder bottom, this time making sure it was well covered in epoxy and I also trimmed out some of the plastic in the stop nut so it wasn't so tight. (I used a screw covered in wax to hold the nut in place while it cured.)

Did some sanding on the VS tip.

The fairing for the top of the ruder is about 1/8" to short. I either needed to build up the front or build up the back. I thought the back being very thin would be more likely to break/crack in the future, so I chose to build up the front. I started by laying up about 6 layers of cloth on it. After curing, it only added about 1/16" thickiness and since I had just mixed up a batch of micro/epoxy, I added some fiberglass cloth fibers to the mix for strenght and globbed it on the end. After that cured, I sanded it down to where it would fit.





When the nut was cured in the rudder bottom for the strobe, I installed the strobe just to make sure it all fit and wouldn't pull out again... came out great this time!



I finished of the evening but making a template for the seat cushions. I made it out of plywood to give to our upholstery shop so they could see the contour and understand how it all goes together.

Sidebar: I've been slack on taking pictures lately.. mostly because there just isn't anything worth taking pictures of. That and I tend to forget. Also, my mom-in-law (Hi Mike!) has gotten the impression from my logs that I'm almost done and I'm just sitting around waiting for my engine. While I do feel like my list of tasks is getting shorter and I'm down to maybe the last 15-20%, 20% of 1600 hours is still 320 hours to go! So mom.. I'm not bored yet!

(Time: 6 hrs)

Still working on fiberglass tips.... and strobe..

With the nuts epoxied in place on the rudder bottom I decided to attach the strobe light. The nuts I used were stop nuts (plastic on one end) and just as I was getting close to getting the top screw all the way in the nut broke free from it's epoxy base! Oh shoot! (Not the exact words I used.) So now I have a screw snuggly embedded in stop nut and no way to grab the nut to back out the screw. I tried drilling a hole into the side of the nut (from the outside) thinking I could stick a pin in the hole to hold it in place... but I broke off the 1/16" drill bit I was using! So now I have a broken drill bit embedded in there... and unfortunatly it wasn't in the nut far enough yet to hold it. In my attempt to get it out, I cracked the tip at the seam along the top... which allowed me to pull out the light. The nice thing about fiberglass is that it is easy to repair! I just mixed up some epoxy and glued it back together.

I did some more sanding and filling on the VS tip.

I mounted the rudder so I could work on the rudder stops. Like everyone else, the stops I made according to the plans don't work. So I made up new ones. I managed to screw up the right one again, so I'll have to make yet another one.

Oh yea.. I also painted the panel! Of course my paint gun decided to act funny while doing it.. but it came out OK.

(Time: 5 hrs)

More sanding and filling of tips

Did some sanding on the elevator tips... they are essentially done... I'll use some flowable filler I have to fill a few pinholes.

I bolted on the horizontal stabilizer and then attached the elevators. I riveted on the HS tips once I knew there was no rubbing going on. I applied some filler on the top sides.

Riveted on the VS tip and applied some filler. The rudder bottom is ready for the strobe light to be installed.. I have the two nuts epoxied in place.

(Time: 4 hrs)

More elevator tip work and tail strobe install

I sanded down the right elevator tip... I'm real happy with how the epoxy/balloon mixture is working. It sands real easy is gives a nice finish. The one concern is cracking over a period of time.... I'm not sure if this will happen with the epoxy mix or not... I know that 'bondo' type fillers crack. The solution is to lay up a lightweight fiberglass cloth over the top.

Next I riveted on the left elevator tip and slathered on a bunch of micro mix.



Finished the evening by drilling the hole in the rudder bottom for the strobe light. I'm epoxying in a couple of nuts on the inside. There isn't a lot of room in there, so I had to sand inside to make room for the nuts. I positioned one in place and gooped a bunch of epoxy around it. I held the nut in place with a screw which I liberally coated in mold release (aka wax). I hope the screw comes out! :-)

(Time: 2.5 hrs)