CHAPTER 5
To read another Chapter click hereunder:
| Saturday, June 24th, 2006 | Continue wings to fuselage tasks |
| Last week I ordered a tap 1/4" - 28 in a local shop. On Friday I received this, so we were in the possibility to finish the Flap Motor Pushrods. Both ends were tapped and this is the result. One end finished perfectly. The other end receives the hardware you see herender. | |
| As the instructions say, we had to install this on the side position of the flaps with some Loctite. | |
| And next we had to locate the exact holes in the fuselage were the pushrod exits. After engaging the flapmotor we could exactly make the shape of the hole to be made. But, take your time for this... Again and again install, filing, again install, filing and so... many times until the pushrod runs freely without obstruction... | |
| Here a view from the inside how the pushrod will be connected. | |
| Topside view inside... | |
| And last but not least, the exterior look with the small hole. Great moment you know.... This is the first time seeing moving something electrically and... this works gorgious... |
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| The elevator belcranks drilled. This took some time. The instructions say how you have to align both belcranks to drill the elevator pushrod hole. Sorry, forgot to take intermediate pictures but, this is exactly the final drill with a bolt temporarily installed... | |
| Farnell In One is a postorder company were I ordered all kind of Toggle Switches. Just to see the possibilities for which switches I will install in my instrument panel. | |
| This is what I prefer so far. But I have to investigate the way to insert 12 Volt lamps into the switches... To be continued... | |
| Time spent together (Me + Ron) | 10 hours |
| Saturday, July 8th, 2006 | Fitting the empennage (Horizontal stab) |
| When I tried to mount the oil reservoir on the firewall a mounting leg broke. Just on the connection in the welding part. I decided to remove the other leg and make another assembly to fix this... | |
| This is what I mage instead of the original part. | |
| And here you can see it mounted to the firewall. | |
| I installed the ruddercable and the clamp which keeps the plastic rudder tube in place. You can also see the blind rivets from the exterior cover plate as shown in the next picture. | |
| Before I riveted this in place I put some proseal in between. This to prevent water leaking in through the plate and the skin during flight... | |
| Then I installed the rudder stops... | |
| Here the rudder cable temporarily in the fuselage. Once the empennage is finished I will lead it through the installed bushings. | |
| And last but not least, I finished the inspection holes with the platenuts as described. Now we can go on with the installation of the horizontal stabilizer. | |
| We brought the stabilizer in place and clamped it to the base plate. Then we started finetuning the position by measuring, measuring again and again and ... until we measured exact the same distance to the corners of the firewall. Perrrfect fit... | |
| During measuring we kept the centerline over the fuselage perfectly aligned with the center of the stabilizer... | |
| Oh yes, before we started drilling the stabilizer to the fuselage, we brought the elevator in an perfect balance by drilling and removing lead from the counter balance in the right elevator. Quite a lot of lead had to be removed before it was in balance. The left elevator was immediately in balance. I will close up these holes later for the cosmeting point of view... | |
| And then, the first holes were drilled to bolt the elevator in place. This into the forward spar through the attach angle. You can see the two left bolts. | |
| And then, to finish the job of today, I repeated this for the other side... Next week the vertical stabilizer... | |
| Time spent together (Me + Ron) | 13 hours |
| Saturday, July 15th, 2006 | Fitting the empennage |
| I started with the incidence setting of the elevator. As I red in the instructions, I could best use a drill of 3/16" to bring the rear spar in place. | |
| Then I drilled and bolted the rear spar to the fuselage. | |
| Gerry and Ron promised to come in the afternoon so I started with preparing some important parts to install in the afternoon. This is one of them. The pushrod. I cut, drilled and primed it. | |
| Another thing that had to be done was the installation of the static lines. Once this was done I was ready to start with further installation of the stabilizers in the afternoon when these both guys came... | |
| The other side... | |
| First we made all further parts to install the pushrod in a proper way. We replaced the washers with two spacers. | |
| Finally, the pushrod completely installed... In the meantime we made the forward pushrod to the sticks but unfortunately I forgot to make a picture from this. I'll add it next time... |
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| Horizontal stabilizer finished and bolted, so up to the vertical stabilizer. The instruction mention to trim the two flanges 5/8" as you can see on the picture. | |
| Here the vertical stabilizer attach plate mounted temporarily with some clamps. And then measure, measure and measure again until the vertical stab is in its proper position and perfectly in place. | |
| The elevator travel-stop in place so the rear spar can be drilled into it. We forgot it before olacing the stabilizer so we had to redo it again. | |
| Another view from this assembly... | |
| And finally the vertical stbilizer attached with the necessary 1/4" left decenter as described in the instructions... Next week we organize our yearly Airshow, the 30th... So, I will have another job to do... |
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| Time spent together (Me + Ron + Gerry) |
21,5 hours |
| Thusday, July 21st, 2006 | Temporarily finishing the empennage and start Front Deck |
| First I measured, drilled and bolted the backside of the verical stabilizer to the tail cone section of the fuselage. | |
| So far, so good... The vertical stabilizer attached to the fuselage. I have to remove this later to prime all used parts. I delay this until I can prime it together with the parts of the front deck. | |
| The rudder temporarily attached to see it's freely swing. Looks great... | |
| the fuselage. I have to remove this later to prime all used parts. Now it's time to add some remaining things to the aft fuselage. I installed the wiring conduit. In the backsection I will finish this when the empennage is disassembled for the parts priming... | |
| I installed a grease nipple in the tailwheel assembly and bolted the tailwheel. | |
| And then, time for the frontdeck. I temporarily clecoed the several parts together. Just to have a better view on the drawings. | |
| And then I started to make all parts. Here you can see the 7108-B Angle... | |
| ... and all the remaining "to be fabricated" parts. The F-7109 plate, the F-7108C and F-721D attach angle... | |
| I installed the F-7109 plate and drilled it using the rib holes as matchdrill references. | |
| Next the F-7108 B in place... | |
| ...and the forward view of this part. So, hereunder a temporarily status of the aircraft. |
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| Time spent |
8,5 |
| Monday, July 25th, 2006 | Front Deck cnt'd |
| I drilled the reinforcement angle to the center rib of the frontdeck... | |
| ... and the longer angle that starts from the firewall. | |
| And then, I clecoed the front deck skin to the fuselage. | |
| Here the inside view with the instrument panel temporarily in place. But, this is it for the moment. I ordered the XL-panel at affordable panels together with the alu vent tubes and some electricity stuff. This has to arrive before I can go on with this part. I also plan to make some modifications for a throttle quadrant in this stage.
Due to the extreme heat I had to stop early. 39 degrees Celsius in the workshop is far too much to work in a convenient way. Next Saturday I will go on... |
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| Time spent |
4 hours... |
| Saturday, July 29th, 2006 | Front Deck cnt'd |
| Continued the front deck. Most of the time we worked today on the deburring, dimpling etc of these parts... We brought the roll bar in place to make last adjustments for the reinforcement plate where it will be bolted. |
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| We installed the tailwheel and adjusted the rudder to the vertical stabilizer. | |
| Pilot In Command... Ronny with a leather pilot helmet.... |
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| And then, before disassembling the frontdeck, a first impression with the cowling... This starts to look like a real airplane isn't it? Next week I leave for Hoganas in Sweden. As two years ago I go to the RV-Fly in. Looking forward to meet these guys again. So, next building log in a couple of weeks... I'm also looking to the possibilities to install a throttle quadrant in the center of the instrument panel. Will be continued... |
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| Time spent |
13 hours... |
| Friday, August 11th, 2006 | Affordable Panels Modular Panel assembling |
| We spent our holodays in Hoganas Sweden on the 12th RV-Fly-In... 24 RV's came over to this happening. Gerry and his wife joined us on this holiday and they had the opportunity to fly a first ride in an RV. Here you see Gerry buckled-up in an RV-8 of Jörn Möller, a Danish RV-builder/Pilot I know since two years. | |
| Do you recognize this smile? Well, this is what RV-ators call the REAL RV-GRIN....
Hilde, Gerry's wife enjoyed a nice fly with Olle Bergquist, the organizer of this beautiful Fly-in. Thanks again Scandinavian friends, for this unforgettable days... |
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| OK, back to business because I had to promise Sweden to come over with my RV to the next Hoganas Fly-in. So, no time to loose... I restarted with the assembling of the Affordable Panels modular panel. Beautiful stuff... Here you see the first angle attached to the instrument panel frame. |
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| Another view with on the bottom the attached angle. | |
| Next I started to install the parts of the subpanel. The two plates for the eyeball vent systems I also buyed from Affordable Panels. | |
| ... and the second angle which will attach the subpanel to the main frame. | |
| As you can see here, both angles attached with platenuts. A lot of platenits... | |
| All attach points nicely countersunk to bring the screws flush to the panels... | |
| A complete view of the subpanel attached to the main frame of the complete panel. | |
| And, just for fun, temporarily the nice vent systems in place... | |
| Next I installed all the nutplates where the frontpanels are connected to. A backside view... | |
| ... and last but not least, the frontside view of the completed panel... Tomorrow I start with the attaching points to the fuselage... | |
| Time spent |
7 hours... |
| Saturday, August 12th, 2006 | Affordable Panels Modular Panel assembling cnt'd |
| As I mentioned yesterday, I continued with the attaching angles where the panel will be connected to the side skins of the fuselage. The F-7108C angle... | |
| ... and the F-793 angle. You see the mounting place indicated with the red arrow. | |
| And here the front view... | |
| Again the complete view with the filler piece in place just on top of the vent system. | |
| And then, the F-71038 L and -R riveted in place instead of the original platenuts to be installed... | |
| and the two F-7103C L and -R after I made these as the instructions say. | |
| Here the F-793 angle. I attached it to the skin after positioning the panel temporarily and drilled new holes. | |
| And then, I finally installed the complete assembly in place, reclecoed the frontdeck skin and drilled the holes where this was necessary. The holes in the F-7103C L and -R had to be match drilled through the prepunched holes of the frontdeck skin... | |
| For the remaining time we had, we started trimming the empennage fairing. | |
| And we clecoed this to the fuselage with some clecoes to keep it in place... | |
| Time spent |
12 hours... |
| Monday, August 14th, 2006 | Deassembling, preparing for priming |
| Nothing to show... Deassembling the frontdeck and some empennage parts to prepare them for priming. Tomorrow I will prime them and put the complete aircraft secure in another part of the workshop. One of these days the complete roof will be renewed. With isolated roof covering plates. This is already a good preparation for the coming winter and this had to be done because the actual roof is old and in bad condition. In a couple of days I will work in much better conditions in the workshop... Really looking forward...!! | |
| Time spent |
6.5 hours... |
| Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 | Priming frontdeck and prepare interior cockpit for spraying parts... |
| As announced yesterday, I primed and then painted the front-deck parts. Ready to rivet into the fuselage. But before final riveting, I will first spray those parts in the cabin that will be visible later... This will be a job for next Saturday... | |
| While waiting the drying of the painted parts I started to locate and install the male Amphenol plugs. Remember the Amphenol female plug with the complete wing electricity? Well this is the counterpart from which the wires will be guided into the fuselage... | |
| This is the inside view where the wires will be soldered to. Again a step forward ... | |
| Time spent |
7 hours... |
| Friday, August 18th, 2006 | Landing gear, tires and |
| I had to be in the workshop for the renewal of the roof. But, due to the bad weather it is delayed until next week. So, in the meantime I started with some intermediate possibilities to work on the project. One of these possibilities was the assembling of wheels. And that was my target for today...
I started with the tires. I finished both wheels... |
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| Then, the gear. I started with the assembling of ths U-403 on the gear leg. After drilling the hole to the right diameter I bolted this assembly together with the break flange. | |
| Some spacers had to be made to install the U-810 plate. | |
| And... finished... Isn't this a beauty? |
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| And of coarse the second gear leg assembly. | |
| I received the ELT and decided to install it under the bagagefloor behind the pilot's seat. So, I have to make an access door to this ELT compartiment. This is my plan... A cut out of the floor, a piano hinge and a SkyCraft latch. So, I started on this by drawing the dimensions I like to have for this access door. | |
| Dome filing work ad some holes to install some reinforcement flanges on three sides. The fourth side will be the piano hinge... | |
| So far so good. Time to leave. I will continue tomorrow... | |
| Time spent |
8 hours... |
| Saturday, August 20th, 2006 | Some intermediate to-do's... |
| Time to fit the latches yet. With the access door for the ELT as first try-out. There are no drawings delivered, so try-and-error...
This is the outside view... |
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| ... and a view from the side of the mechanism. | |
| And this is the way it will look when pushed on the back button to open the accessdoor. | |
| I decided to make another accessdoor which had to be larger and will situate behind the co-pilot's seat. A below-the-bagagefloor compartiment to store reserve oil and the tie-down set for the airplane. I made this completely the same as the ELT-access door but larger. This has to be closed with two latches... | |
| And again the measurements for the push-to-open buttons. This time more perfect... | |
| Outside view with the two latches | |
| The opened button... | |
| ... and here a view with the door opened. Once this was finished I started to rivet all parts together for both the doors. |
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| And then I prepared for paint-spraying the two assemblies. First the ELT-door... | |
| ... and then the OIL / TIE DOWN compartiment door. And, yes, the day was past. This took a lot of time to do but, I think it's worth while.
I finished it with painting before ending this project day... I hope all my parts will come before the next week... |
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| I went back on Sunday to see the result after the painting job of yesterday. I riveted the latches to the access doors and here you can see the results...
First of all the top view of the oil reserve compartiment... |
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| ... and the bottom view where you can see the latches from the other side. | |
| And here the topview of the ELT compartiment. | |
| The way the latches function... | |
| ... and last but not least, the bottom view of that door...
Looks really nice, not? |
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| Time spent |
9 hours... |
| Saturday, August 26th, 2006 | Roof Renewal Workshop and electricity tail |
| Not the RV-project but nevertheless ... as important. We ordered a renewal of the workshop roof... | |
| The old roof panels were replaced... | |
| by new isolated panels. It looks really nice and, for the coming winter this will work a lot more comfortable... | |
| First of all I replaced the oil reservoir bracket of July the 8th by a more solid bracket that Gerry made. This is really nice stuff. As you see this is much more solid than the one I made the 8th of July. I was afraid that my first made would break after a couple of hours vibrations. This is perfect. Thanks Gerry... well done... | |
| Than I decided to work on the tail section today. I still had to secure the piano hinge from the trim tab. Here you see how I made this. | |
| I screwed the Ray Allen trim motor to the horizontal stabilizer plate and prepared for the electric connection with the wires going through the fuselage... | |
| Then I made a clamp to secure the wire conduit to the horizontal stabilizer. | |
| I connected the wires to the trim motor wires and pulled the complete bundle of wires together with the shielded wire for the taillight through the wire conduit to the cabin section. | |
| Around the wires coming out the wire conduit I attached some protection spirals. These were guided through te holes to the trim motor compartiment.
The gray wire is the shielded wire from the taillights. This had to go to the bottom of the tailcone. |
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| I guided the taillight wire down and attached another clamp to keep the complete assembly strongly fixed in place. | |
| Here you can see this second clamp better. Further I connected the pushrods from the trimmotor to the trim tab... And that was it for today...
At the end Ronny came in to give a hand. |
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| Time spent |
11 hours... |
| Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 | Throttle Quadrant modifications |
| Yesterday all instruments arrived... And, all kind of stuff I ordered last weeks. So, you can imagine... Daddy was playing with all these nice things. Garmin 340, SL40, the transponder from Garmin, the audiopanel, the AvMap etc... But, also the throttle quadrant arrived and so I planned to start modify the panel and make an assembly to install this beauty on the panel. And this is what I did today. I build a frame from the panel to the front section ribs on which this Throttle quadrant can be installed in a perfect way. Here some pictures... | |
| The two angles were made in a way that they attach at the rear side of the Affordable Panel frame and that the Quadrant matches perfect in the middle of the panel. The two angles were measured through the throttle cable plate on the second rib of the front section. They go straight to the firewall where I will attach them to give more strength to the assembly. | |
| Here you can see the front view once attached temporarily... | |
| ... and a side view how the quadrant matches perfectly to the front by installing it in the middle of the subpanel... This looks really nice and... I'm sure this will fly very ergonomically... Next week I continue.
Well I plan to work first on the Instrument panel now. Everything is easy to reach so this is the best moment to do all this electricity stuff... I plotted the drawing of my instrument panel and attached it temporarily to have a better view on the complete installation... I will put the drawing in the site when finished... |
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| Time spent |
9 hours... |
| Saturday, September 9th, 2006 | Throttle Quadrant modifications cnt'd |
| I bought some softer intermediate seats to sit more comfortable in the cockpit. Before attaching the throttle quadrant in place I tried out the space for my legs. And... this looks perfect. | |
| This is the TQ from a side view. Dosn't take to much room... | |
| So I decided to attach the TQ assembly with the two angles to the firewall to make it more solid.
Here you see entering the two angles in the cable plate on the second front section rib... |
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| and here it is the front side view. You can see the two cuts to bend the assembly upwards... | |
| And last but not least, the attaching point on the firewall. This works perfect... | |
| The two Dynon screens have a craddle. By assembling them this way I gain 8 mm inbetween the outside position of the screens. And, I can use these millimeters... | |
| Then we started to position the radio stack craddles. As designed on my panel, this will be the position. | |
| The only problem is that the GNS 430 and the Tx craddle need a cut-out in the second rib...
And, all the rest we did was measure and measure so that I could update my basic drawing of the panel. You can see it better by clicking here... The complete panel is almost ready to be lasered... |
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| Time spent with Ronnie's help | 14 hours... |
| Sunday, September 17th, 2006 | Inactivity due to the club rally yesterday but... some things done on Sunday |
| I ordered a POS-12 sensor at Ray Allen, together with a LED-indicator to provide the instrument panel with a flap indicator. On the website of Aircraft Extras I found a perfect possibility to install this thing. So, I started to install this Position Indicator Plate. On top a hinge and bottom the sensor... | |
| Next I fabricated a clamp to hold the sensor in place on the flap arm. Simple but an accurate way of measuring the position of the flaps. | |
| It tokk quite a time to find the exact position. It is necessary to measure this perfectly to prevent the sensor being overstressed in case the arm continues to pull or to push. But, it works... | |
| Little works but time consuming... | |
| For the remaining time I started to replace the standard static "rivets" from Van's to real ones. Looks much better and I feel more convenient with these Spruce-ordered ports... | |
| Time spent | 7 hours... |
| Saturday, September 23th, 2006 | Parking Brake |
| Ronny couldn't come today, so I spent my day by finetuning some millimeters on the panel drawing because the ExpBus and the annunciator panel had still to be done. After that, I started with the parking brake valve installation. I ordered this Matco Park brake valve previous week from Van's and it came in already... | |
| As I saw on Checkoway's website I made a bracket for this assembly so that I could install it on the inside firewall. | |
| Here you can see where I positioned this. | |
| And then, I finished all tubing. The main tubes from the pedals are to long. So I will order some new from Van's later. | |
| And then, the first attaching point for the Bowden Cable for activating this Brake Valve from the instrument panel. | |
| Time spent | 8,5 hours... |
| Saturday, September 30th, 2006 | Garmin Stack |
| Ronny couldn't come today so I decided to start building the stack. Henk Sesink, a friend from Sanicole, will laser cut the panel the coming week. So I will proceed building the panel to be ready for the big wiring job. I think it is best to go on with the panel first. Now it is still easy to reach all places where the wires have to come...
So, I started today with the backplates of the cradles of all Garmin avionics. |
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| I cut two plates to connect and reinforce the complete avionics stack and riveted all cradles together. | |
| This looks really perfect isn't it? A nice front view of the center panel section. I'm really looking forward to receive the panels next week. | |
| After all cradles were connected and riveted together, I tried it out to bring it in place into the panel. Here the backside of the stack in place... | |
| ... and the way it will look from the pilot's seat... | |
| Time spent | 8 hours... |
| Saturday, October 7th, 2006 | Panel cut-out trial 1 |
| Henk Sesink, a friend at Sanicole, lasered my first trial panel. Here you see a detail after the laser cutting, starting from my .DWG file. I removed the plastic protection film and started to try out all instruments for fitting. | |
| Here the left part of the panel. Some small modifications have to be made. I took my laptop with me and modified one after the other all instrument lines. | |
| The back view of the instruments. Everything looks good except the subpanel. I made an interpretation mistake for the switches. On this version they are to close together. So, all things modified today and the new .DWG is already back to Henk for the final cut. This will probably be ready next week. Then we will continue assembling and we will start with the electrical scheme for the wiring... | |
| Time spent | 14 hours... |
| Saturday, October 14nd, 2006 | Next trial Panel Cut-out + start wiring diagram |
| What a service... On Thursday evening I received the new cut from the panel. Last week I made the last modifications and... already finished... There is still one little problem left. The hole for the masterswitch was still wrong. Henk will do the left botto subpanel again and then it is all OK. I started today with the installation of the Efis cradles and the finalizing of the left master panel. |
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| The one after the other I measured the instruments and installed them into the panel. Everything fits perfect. It took some time to modify the Nulite rings at the backside. With a Dremel I had to shape them to fit perfectly but, the result is gordious...
There is still one hole left... On the left side of the Trio Aultopilot I will install the Altitude version... |
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| Finally, we installed the panel into the Affordable Panels frame. Big moment... Some small modifications and... this is the result. Looks really good... | |
| Another shot but now from the backside. You see the cut-out for the Efis clearance. Some of these small modifications had to be done to fit the assembly perfectly...
And then... time to start drawing. Gerry, Ronny and I started the rough lay-out of the wiring diagram. We plan to wire first before closing the front and start installing the canopy... But, this takes a lot of time. The complete afternoon it was drawing, discussing, thinking, trying etc... I think this will take some time but, this is a very important part and has to be done first. I'll keep you informed... Just to tease... a nice view of the panel in place so far... |
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| Time spent (Ron, Gerry and me) | 22 hours... |
| Saturday, October 21st, 2006 | Panel cnt'd... |
| After some last small modifications to be done in the right sub panel (the hole for the masterswitch was too big) and the lower stack panel (hole for the annunciators where wrong), Henk laser cutted these two again and I started to finalize the panel fitting. As you see on the picture from this day, everything fits perfectly. I had to do some modifications on the panel frame to fit the annunciator segment as shown on this picture. Later these leds will show the burning exterior lights on an printed airplane silhouette...
The Alternator annunciator in place... |
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| The two Fuel Guardian annunciators in place... | |
| The top and bottom stack plates in place and perfectly fitting... | |
| I reinforced both coverplates with an angle strip. Later the stack will be secured to the ribs. | |
| The LEDs on top, are the annunciators of the ExpBus extension. Again these fit perfect in the cut-out of the panel. | |
| Here you see the backside of the panel with the PCB of the ExpBus extension...
Below, the backside view of the 4 dimmer potentiometers. Perfectly in line... |
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| And the frontview of the dimmer section. | |
| And, last but not least, everything in place, except the right panel section. There the AvMap has still to be installed... The only things missing until now are the rocker switches. After finishing the electrical wiring diagram I will order these at Otto Engineering. So far so good. Again a big step forward... |
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| Time spent | 8 hours... |
| Saturday, October 28th, 2006 | Panel cnt'd. (Right section AvMap-craddle) |
| Target of this project day was to fabricate a craddle for the AvMap in the right panel section. So I started with cutting angles for the backside of the AvMap craddle. The backside has to remain in position while the frontsection slips into it together with the AvMap EKP IV. One major topic. I have to be able to take out the AvMap in a simple way. So this is the way I made this assembly... |
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| Two angles keep the backside craddle in place. The front frame slips exactly into this. | |
| Here you can see the start position. The only thing left... I have to be able to secure this together with the instrument from the frontside of the panel. | |
| So I made 4 angles which I riveted to the frontpanel. These angles (holding strips for the frontside) where cut-out in the panel. The backside is replaced with strips that contain a platenut. They will receive the screw from the frontside. | |
| The same on the topside of the AvMap. | |
| And here at least the result from the frontside. You can see the two securing angles in place with a screw. Easy to remove... | |
| And here the complete view of this assembly in place...
Once this will be powdercoated it will look good... So, this took quite a long time but again a step forward in the finalizing of the panel installation. In the meantime, the altitude hold is on its way. Once this is here I can install this too... Next week I start securing the radiostack and then it will be time to think on the powdercoating of the panel... |
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| Time spent together with Ronny | 13 hours... |
| Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 | Panel cnt'd. Securing Radio Stack |
| Another view of the way I installed the AvMap EKP IV.
So, today I started fastening the radio craddle. It fits already nicely in the panel but it needs to be fastened securely and strong to the ribs behind the panel. For that I installed some angles which connect the panel frame to the centersection subpanel. |
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| On the other side I riveted a plate to the craddle which will be fastened to the rib. | |
| Here a better view to the two angles. I riveted them to the cradle. The front and the back side have to be in a way that it will be possible to screw it. I need to have the possibility to unmount the cradle because the topskin still has to be riveted. With the cradle in place this isn't possible. | |
| Tomorrow I will work on a way it will be possible to unmount the complete cradle from the back side. It gives me some headaches to find the right way. But, this is the last thing to do before I can start spraying all parts and final rivet them in place. | |
| Time spent | 5 hours... |
| Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 | Panel cnt'd. Securing Radio Stack |
| No Pictures | I finally find the way to unmount the cradle. It took almost a whole day to make a construction which gives me the possibility to bring in or remove the cradle from the bottom of the panelsection.
After I made this complete construction I started to unmount the complete front section. I will continue tomorrow after spraying all separate peaces... |
| Time spent | 9 hours... |
| Friday, November 3rd, 2006 | Painting parts and inside cabin |
| Big step forward again! I could work the whole day on finishing al the parts of the front section. All parts are ready and painted now, the cockpit is painted but I did not have the possibility to make a picture of it. That's for tomorrow... | |
| And..., the complete panel (2 x) is prepared and ready to be powder coated. Tomorrow I start again constructing the front section. And then... wiring, cables, etc...
Once this is done I can go on with the canopy. I plan to go to Jade Air in England the third week of January to go in a constructing class for my engine. If things go as planned, I hope to finish this project around the end of April... |
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| Time spent | 9 hours... |
| Saturday, November 4th, 2006 | Final constructing the front section |
| After everything was spray painted I restarted to mount all the pieces in place. Even the stack was painted as you can see. | |
| Here you can see the way I solved the problem of how to get the complete radio stack cradle out once the parts are all riveted and the skin is in place... | |
| The sharp edges were provided with a plastic strip to prevent damaging wires. | |
| An overview of the painted front section... | |
| And then I started to mount some instruments in place. First of all, the instruments and stack cooling fan. | |
| I installed some platenuts to the fan to make the installation and later de-installation of the fan possible. I installed it to the right front section rib. | |
| The other side with the screws in place... | |
| The DC Load center on the sub panel rib. | |
| Another view in place.. | |
| And another one... | |
| Next thing... The ELT. As you remember, I made a cover door on the bagage floor. Here again to find out the right position. | |
| And then the ELT cradle in place | |
| .... with the ELT. | |
| I used very light foam parts to cover the ELT Compartiment.
And last but not least, a complete overview of the cabin... |
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| Time spent | 9 hours... |
| Saturday, November 11th, 2006 | Engine mount, wheels, Altitude hold ... |
| Instead of installing a power jack outside the airplane, I decided to build it under the panel in a way it doesn't disturb the passenger. Second motivation, I don't have to see this outside because it is just an emergency solution when the battery is dead. So, it is quite easy to plug an external battery into this to start the engine with an external battery. Third, I don't have to put more heavy wire to another location. This place only needs max 2' of 4 AWG wire. Weight.... | |
| As you can see, this location is very close to the Load Center and very close to the battery which is located on the right side of the firewall. Close to this thing... | |
| And finally, here you can see where the external connector will have to be plugged in. Quite easy to do... | |
| I forgot to make pictures of the installation of the altitude hold servo. Here you see it as finished. Close to the belcranck... Only the wires have still to be done. | |
| And then..., another milestone in my project. The RV is on his wheels...
Because my workshop is also my son's restauration workshop for vintage cars and moto's, my RV has to be mobile as soon as possible. Well, it is from now on... |
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| The engine mount on the firewall. It took some time to be bolted exact in place... | |
| A front view of this beauty on his legs... This is really nice to see... | |
| The new strobe box mount Van's is advertising with. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and installed it today. If you plan to use this, install it immediately when you are building the fuselage. It is really a pain in the .... euh brains, to drill the bottom holes in this phase. But OK, ... succeeded.
So, another big step forward. |
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| Time spent with Ronny | 16 hours... |
| Saturday, November 18th, 2006 | Fitting instruments in powdercoated panel |
| Last Tuesday I went to pick-up the powdercoated panels. Beautifull!!!!
Here you can see the left parts of the panel segments. The only disadvantage of powdercoating is the thickening of the edges. So I had to spend almost the whole day to grind the section edges to make them fit again in the panel frame... |
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| And here the right section parts. The same for some instruments. Measuring, fitting, grinding, drilling some holes out etc... But it is worthwhile all this job. |
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| So, the panel is fitting again, all instruments where tried and this beauty is ready to be screen printed now. My son Dimi made an appointment to use some screen frames to do this. We will do this together in two colors within 1,5 week. I will make pictures from this .
Well, hereunder a total view. What do you think? Is it OK or not? |
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| In the meantime I finalised the panel lay-out in a way that we can send it to a graphic service to make the screen films. I plan to go for the screen print next week with Dimitri, my son. So, to have an idea of how the final panel will look like, so far the final drawing. Click here to have a big detailed view on your screen... | |
| Time spent with Ronny | 13 hours... |
| Two weeks to finish next step | Labeling of the panel (impressions of screenprint) |
| The technique used to label the panel is called screenprint. It is based on the pictures you will see hereunder. First of all, the design (drawn in Adobe Illustrator), as you can see it on the picture hereabove, has to be prepared to make it possible to screen... I choosed for two colors on the panel as you can see in the design (a more close look if you click on the link in the text above the drawing). Both colors have to be separated because the screen technique requires two separate prints for each piece of the panel... In this picture the screenprinter is doing this preparation starting from my basic Illustrator artwork. |
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| This is a frame which will be used for the printing. The artwork needs to be copied on this frame. For that, the frame will first of all be prepared with some chemics that will have the specifications to receive the image in a photographic way. | |
| Here the photograpic recipients are prepared and brought into a container. This will be used to prepare the frame... | |
| And this is the basic preparation of the photographic layer on the frame... | |
| A very important phase... All parts are positioned on the print-out to have a clear view on the way they have to be projected on the frame. Especially the second color and the positioning of the image on the parts is of course very important. |
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| Chalk representations of the separated artwork are made to be used for the photographic process. On the next picture you see all the chalk printouts. They need to fit exactly when both separated colors will be printed on top of each other in a later phase... | |
| On these two pictures you can see the chalk printouts positioned on the frame and placed over a light source. This is the photographic phase of the technique. | |
| Quite simple to understand... All the black lines on the chalk will NOT receive light while the unprinted parts receive the light. Once this is done... | |
| ... the frame will be cleaned under high pressure. On all the unlighted parts, the photographic recipients disappear while the lighted parts keep it. By keeping this on the unlighted part, the screen in the frame receives a kind of film which makes it resistant to inks that will be used for the printing. Where the recipients where NOT lighted, this film was cleaned and it will allow the ink to go through the screen... | |
| The parts are placed exactly under the frame and are ready to receive the solvent ink (scratch free) via the screen which was prepared. | |
| By putting ink on top of the frame, the lighted parts will allow the ink to pass through the screen while the unlighted parts obstruct the ink to move to the to-be-printed parts. The screenprinter uses a pallet to push the ink through the screen... |
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| And that's it... The part can be removed and the frame is ready for the next print. The second color needs to be positioned exactly on the first... The next picture shows the result of the described process. But... this is only one part in one color... It is quite a labour to do this but the result is very nice. I refer to the next chapter to see the reults of the finished panel. |
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| Saturday, November 25th, 2006 | Start-up wiring configuration |
| Not much to see for you... We spent the whole day to figure out how we will guide all wires from the aft section through the centersection to the front section. We also made a mounting plate for the Approach Fast Stack. I didn't make pictures from this but this wilol follow later.
So, a lot of labour today without really see progress. Nevertheless, I feel good for the progress we made... |
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| Time spent with Ronny and Gerry | 15 hours... |
To continue reading the following or previous chapter(s), click on the Chapter hereunder...