Home Preparation Empennage Wings Fuselage Engine Finish Kit Favorite Links W & B Calculator Van's Aircraft Email Me

Finish Kit Update May 2012 Updates May 27, 2012 More Windscreen Work...... - 7.0 hrs Ok got to the hangar and peeled off the peel ply. Looking good. Next I finished up riveting the left side skirt. Thought I finished it yesterday. Must of been delerious from the heat. Anyway once that was done I set the canopy back in place and tested closing it. Installed the handle and pulled it shut. Check! Then I got my fancy top handle that I bought ages ago. The only problem with this handle is it gets held in place with 2 set screws. No way the kind of pressure this takes will that work long term. So I got it into position and with one of the sit screws out I marked it and then used a #40 bit to drill a small dimple in the shaft. I removed it and then drilled it deeper on the drill press. Next I repeated the steps for the other set screw on the other side. Came out great. I will just install this on the final step with Locktite to make sure they do not vibrate out. Next I sanded and cleaned up the 1 inch glass layer. Then I marked a 2 inch line and tapped a bottom line with 3 layers of electrical tape starting with white as a sanding indicator. Then I retaped the top with the same color for the last layer. Then it was time to lay another glass layer moving up to a wider layer. Of course in these hot temps the last of my batch kicked off and started smoking. Pot life not good in this heat. So I had to mix up a second batch and then peel ply all around. Then it is a waiting game for it to setup again. Tomorrow I will try to get a early morning session and then an afternoon session. This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft. My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.