Saturday, November 25, 2017

Picked up some AeroLED's


Managed to pick up some AeroLED’s Navigation/Anti-collision Strobe/Position lights. Pulsar NS and the Suntail. I hooked them up to a 12V battery to test them out and they work perfect. Wow are they bright.
  

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Installed wing inspection plates, wings finished - 3 hours

Last step was to complete the wing inspection plates. I had filed all the edges on the inspection plates down to clean the shear marks off, and then chamfered the edges to ensure a good fit with the radius corners of the skin. I ran each through the 3M wheel to finish the edges. I final drilled each screw hole on the drill press. Most important, I polished each hole with the dremel and fine grit sandpaper (lesson learned from the wing tank screw hole to ensure no cracks in the thick material when dimpling). The wings are now ready for storage.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Finished installing the flaps - 3 hours

I had trimmed the outboard wing hinge, and all that was left to do was to deal with the hinge pins.

There are two options to install the hinge pins; 1 - keep the hinge its entire length and place a hole in the aileron hinge bracket, or 2 - Cut the hinge in two and access from the middle. Knowing how difficult it can be to install hinge pins....and it's not always fun. I opted for option #2. However I decided to deviate slightly from the plans following a poplar method of installing a nutplate and small hing piece to hold the pins. I figured out where the best location for the hinge pin to be secured was, and I then removed the required hinge loops.

Bending the hinge pins is really about trial and error. Since I had lots of extra hinge pins from buying extra hinge...I just played with a few different test pieces till I got it right. Next I checked the clearances inside between the flap and brace with the hinge closed. I now have a good idea where to locate the hinge hold piece.


After drilling, countersinking and primer touchup I installed the nutplate. Next, I installed the hinge pin hold pieces with a #6 screw.