Category Archives: Forward Section

Time: 6 hours

I finished up the left lower longeron today by removing it and Deburring all the holes and edges. I also deburred the holes in the lower skin and weldements where I had drilled through. One last task before reinstalling the longeron to continue the build was to round over the last 2″ of the aft end of the longeron. This is done so the skin that starts to roll up here makes a nice transition and doesn’t have a sharp corner.

I marked off the section and hit the scotch-brite wheel and made the transition.

I put that longeron back in place with clecko’s and the temporary bolts in the forward section. I also put the 2 flush screws in place at the gear tower weldement. When I was done with that I repeated the entire process on the right side with nice results. I then grabbed the spacer that goes between the gear tower weldement and the gear tower plate and deburred both the left and right one. I also reamed all the 1/8″ holes in the gear weldement to clean out all the powder coating. I then placed the aux longeron, spacer and plate in position on the left side. You clecko from the inside to make it easier to put the skins on for fitting. I repeated the process for the right side but had an issue. When everything was in place the aft end of the longeron was almost a 1/4″ higher than the gusset it will be riveted to.

After discussions with my buddy Glen we decided that it was the spacer that was preventing the longeron from settling where it needed to be. My guess is that the weldement is off just a little and it’s tweaking it a little. So my fix was to shave off a little of the spacer so the longeron could slide down as needed. I made several small attempts at this until I got it just right and the fit was good.

After match drilling a few holes on the mid-braces I separated the center section from the forward section and cleaned up all the mess.

The next step in the plans are to build out the walls of the seat section including the skins, vertical bulkheads and arm rests. I took some time and located all the parts for this section.

That’s where I called it a day as all those parts need deburring which I will get to in the next couple days. Another good day and Fall is playing nice with beautiful weather.

Time: 4 Hours

I got 4 hours in the Hangar before giving to grabbing the Harley and hitting the road to see the fall colors on this 80° Sunday. First up was to do some final tweaking of the 2 aux longerons. I wasn’t happy with the way they were lining up with the aft gussets and needed a little twisting for them to line up just right. After that it was time to line up the lower longerons and clamp them into their final position for match drilling. You want to make sure the longeron is tight against with engine mount as well as the gear tower weldements. I used various type clamps to hold the longeron in place after lining it up.

You start with the aft most hole of the bottom skin and drill up using the skin as a guide into the longeron. You then move to the forward most 4 holes that go through the skin, the longeron and the engine mount. Opening those holes up with a #12 drill to allow for AN3 bolts. I inserted the forward and aft bolt in those 4 holes to maintain the longeron position.

Now that I had the forward end and aft end locked down I just worked my way down the longeron drilling each hole and cleckoing them as I went.

There are 2 holes drilled up through the gear tower weldement that got opened up to a #19 hole. These will have screws in them and will need a flush head on the underside of the skin. This will allow the landing gear to sit flush on the underside. So after drilling those holes I grabbed the #19 countersink bit and cage to drill those holes.

That’s where I stopped and went for the Harley ride. Not a whole lot today but any work in the Hangar is good!

Time: 4 Hours

Today started off with sanding down the Super-Fill to make the holes I accidentally drilled disappear. I then reprimed all the spots where I sanded.

Once the primer was dry I assembled all the parts for the baggage floor support and got them all riveted together.

I then put some masking tape in the Cam-Loc holes to keep them from getting primer/paint on them and then primed all the rivets I just did. A light sanding on all the surfaces followed up by cleaning the dust and using a tack cloth to remove any fibers from the rags I used to clean. I hung all the parts and got to painting. I have found that there are very subtle differences in the final color from can to can of the Rustoleum. So I have made some timing changes to my paint plans so that the 3rd and final coat on matching pieces will be from the same can. This will insure that parts that mate up together have the same coat from the same can reducing a noticeable difference in color. When parts are separated by even a couple of inches you can’t tell but right next to each other you can, sometimes!

All in all I’m happy with my painting progress, there are some imperfections but I can live with those and think they look great. I’m really happy with the color! I will let these parts cure for 5 days or so and get to riveting them next weekend.

Time: 6 Hours

I made some good progress today in prep for painting and assembly of the bulkheads and baggage area. I riveted the 2 support angles to the baggage floor, all the nutplates to the angles and lower bulkhead.

In this process I realized that I made a big error on my baggage floor prior to making the center cut for my modification. On the left side of the baggage floor, the farthest away from the baggage door, there are 4 screws that hold that end of the floor in place. These screws will go through the baggage floor and into nutplates on the floor support. I accidentally drilled the 2 wing holes for the nutplates, all 8 of them, through the nutplate wings and through the baggage floor! Oops those are for the rivets to hold the nutplates in place and if I riveted them through all the holes the screws would be useless and the floor would now be permanently installed. So now I have 8 holes that I don’t know what to do with. At breakfast today with the builders I was given and idea and told to come over to his shop. Super-Fil to the rescue! This is a epoxy filler, like bondo for cars. It will dry hard and will be easily sandable.

So now that the day was saved with the Super-Fil I moved on to adding a 2″ pass thru flange for my cool air supply to the cockpit. There is a NACA vent on left side of the forward fuselage that will scoop air for the cockpit. This vent connects to a 2″ duct hose that goes to a eyeball vent on the dash. Van’s has you just hang the duct which doesn’t look that great. So I’m using a aluminum pass thru and eventually an elbow so that the duct hose won’t be seen and it will be hidden. I measured where I thought it should go and looked at my buddies as well. I cut the hole with a step bit and finished the rest with the dremel.

Since the primer was dry on the upper bulkhead I started that riveting so I could paint tomorrow. First was the doubler followed by the single nutplate for the hinge pin and the 3 Cam-Loc’s.

I need to rivet all the baggage floor supports before I can paint but need to wait for the Super-Fil to dry and will get to it tomorrow. That’s all I can do today and will get back at it tomorrow.