It’s both… it’s the marvel of modern technology!

Today I started out by removing the air duct plenum from the fuselage where it’s new side appendage had been shaped by the thigh support wedge duct.  I pulled the peel ply, trimmed the triangle duct and cleaned up the plenum.

I had to trim down some glass edges inside the triangular duct, but after 15 min worth of work it was looking good.

I then set it back in its place inside the fuselage.   For reference the left sidewall is at the top of the pic.

I then mocked up the thigh support wedge duct over top of the duct plenum to see how it fit.

As you can see, the new air feed into the thigh support wedge duct fits nicely.  My next task was to install these 2 components into the cockpit permanently, but first . . .

I wanted to finish riveting the K1000-3 nutplates to the fuel selector valve bracket. Below is technically the aft side of the bracket.

While this is the front side.

I drilled the first 2 of a number of lightening holes on the fuel selector valve bracket, and then mounted it in place just to check that all is good.  And it is so far!

Here are the 3 fuel selector valve bracket bolts from the inside of the nose wheel well.

With the fuel selector valve bracket mounting bolts all taken care of, it was time to permanently mount the thigh support wedge duct and the duct plenum into the cockpit.

I whipped up some micro using fast hardener as usual, then micro’d/flocro’d these two pieces in place.

This pic may simply look like it did before, but this time they’re permanently mounted.

I then took about 20 minutes to sand the aft edge of the thigh support wedge duct to fair in into the existing seat pan.  Once I finished sanding and vacuumed up all the mess, I glassed the thigh support wedge duct in place with 2 plies of BID, overlapping onto the cockpit floor both front & back.  I then peel plied the layup.

A couple hours later I razor trimmed the layup and snapped this shot of the duct plenum, mounted in place permanently.

I then cut the glass out of the 1-1/4″ diameter hole for the aluminum duct vent tube, which will be used to connect SCAT tubing to the thigh support wedge duct.  I then pulled the front peel ply strip and the peel ply immediately around the duct vent tube hole.  I then micro’d the 1-1/4″ OD aluminum duct vent tube into place.

I then removed the peel ply from the rest of the pilot seat thigh support wedge duct.  The pics below are simply a wider angle and closer up view of it.

Again, tomorrow I will continue to press forward with internal cockpit stuff for at least another few days until l get the GIB & PIC area heating & air ducts in place.  In addition, by next weekend I plan on having the pilot seat area thigh support, fuel valve structure and left arm rest installed (including throttle quadrant).  Then I can sit in the airplane and finally determine exactly where my nose components need to be located.  Finally, I’ll continue to work GIB area component installs as well prior to the strakes being installed.

I started out today doing some electrical system housekeeping.  I keep a listing of all my electrical system components and their 2-digit identifier code used in my wiring label scheme.  Well, over the past 9 months I’ve had some major changes to some of the electrical subsystems and while I’ve kept up with the actual wiring design, the code tracking has room for improvement.

I updated my database and printed off a bunch of 2-digit ID labels and tracked down the stuff that needed labeling.  I’ve also rewickered a lot of lighting circuits and some switches, so I updated those and my switch tracking diagram as well.

I then got on to the task at hand, finalizing the components for the PIC/GIB air distribution valve, fondly known as Valve #3. Since its construction involved mechanically putting it together, with no epoxy or stuff requiring drying times, I kicked the actual construction of it down the road until I got a gap, while stuff was curing, to do it (see end of post).

I then got into stuff that needed time to cure.  As I was drifting off to sleep last night I was thinking about the wiring traversing under the pilot seat thigh support and decided to mount a couple of the smallest RivNuts I have on hand into the face of the pilot seat thigh support wedge for Adel clamp hard points.  Much, much easier to do them now than later on.  And these things weigh like a microgram, so any added weight would be the scant few grams of flox to hold them in place.

Along with the 2 RivNuts, I figured out the required shape of the right side end piece to cap the thigh support wedge and contain the flowing air, which, once reaching the end of the road inside the thigh support wedge duct, will make a hard left turn going forward again through SCAT tubing until reaching the glass vent assembly for my right foot.

So I got to work and micro’d & glassed the small end cap foam piece in place with a ply of BID both inside and out.

Here you can see the pilot seat thigh support wedge right end cap piece glassed in place with 1 ply of BID.  You can also see the right floxed-in-place RivNut Adel clamp hardpoint and the floxed in place (only floxed at this point) Valve #3, which I drilled & riveted after I laid the wedge duct end cap piece.

Not too much longer after I finished messing about with installing valve #3 with flox into the ductwork, the wedge duct end cap piece layup was ready for razor trimming.

Here’s a shot of the thigh support wedge duct end cap piece on the inside.

In my attempt to make things much easier in the build process I try to anticipate what next steps will have their difficulty amplified if not done sooner rather than later.  Again, I really strive to get the proper sequencing down to make the build flow much smoother.  Of course that’s the goal I aim at, but obviously don’t always hit my mark.  However, I think I did alright in determining that with the available room afforded to me once the thigh support wedge duct was floxed/micro’d in place, drilling the 1-1/4″ diameter hole for the SCAT tubing connector was going to be tough.

That being the case, I grabbed my trusty hole saw kit and drilled this baby out.

I want the connecting SCAT tubing to run as close to the fuselage floor as possible, so I angled the aluminum tubing piece downward a bit.  This required that I trim it down a bit on the inside of the wedge duct if I wanted to obtain the most optimized airflow as possible.

Here’s a shot from the front.  I threw the Adel clamp in there to show the spacing and that the wires being secured by the Adel clamp will simply travel right underneath the duct SCAT tubing connection.

Before I mounted the pilot thigh support wedge duct I had to do 2 things:  First, I needed get air flowing out of the under-armrest duct “plenum” into the cockpit-crossing wedge duct.  I outlined the wedge duct’s right side end cap with tracing paper, cut it out and then transferred that to a piece of urethane foam block, and then cut out the duct shape.  This was just a hair more undersized than the inside of the wedge duct to allow for general fitting and glass thickness.

I then transferred the shape onto the intersecting side of the sidewall duct plenum and cut the same-shaped hole into the duct plenum.  I worked with the foam wedge & the hole cutout to the point where the foam wedge could be mounted –unmarred– into the duct plenum side hole.  I then duct taped the urethane triangular foam piece.

I then tested it out by temporarily mounting both the sidewall duct plenum and the thigh support wedge duct in place.  I then realized the aft side foam wedge fit fine in the wedge duct, but there was a considerably gap at the front. So I cut another piece of foam and taped it to the face of the existing protruding foam wedge form.  One slight mod later and I then taped up the foam form addition and was ready for glassing.

Here’s the foam form piece in place right before I glassed it with scrap BID pieces.  I made the triangular form a bit longer than it needs to be to allow for trimming.  This will allow it to traverse through the 3/8″ left armrest sidewall and still mate nicely into the left side wedge duct entrance.

I whipped up some MGS285 epoxy with fast hardener (FYI, my 285 fast hardener doesn’t seem to cure quite as fast my 335 hardener… maybe a hardener age issue?) and glassed the new triangular “T” section of my sidewall duct plenum.

And peel plied the layup.

For better topic flow I’m showing the below pics now, although it came after I drilled the fuel valve bracket bolt holes.

I took the “green” state cured layup assembly above and mounted it into the fuselage in the duct plenum’s final position, which in large measure was determined by the interface of the duct plenum’s triangular air duct feed into the thigh support wedge duct, which I then set in place over the glassed (and peel plied) triangular foam form.  After getting the final locations dialed in, I then weighed it all down in place to replicate the final installation positioning.

I had previously taped up both the fuselage floor and the inside of the thigh support wedge duct with duct tape so that no epoxied bits would attempt to stick permanently to anything.

Here’s a closeup of the target intersection in my attempt to get the intersection as clean and leak free as possible, although the actual physical interface is more important at this point than possible leaks.

In reality, I let the layup above cure for a bit before doing the whole mock install thing while I drilled the fuel valve bracket bolt holes through both the fuel valve bracket and the Finnish Birch plywood hardpoint that I embedded into the base of the instrument panel –as per plans– back in 2011.  BTW, this was precursor #2 that needed to be completed before I mounted the thigh support wedge duct for good, since I wouldn’t have the right drilling angle, or space to do so, with the wedge duct mounted & in the way.

After a bit of wrangling and trying out some gymnastics moves… nearly standing on my head inside the cockpit… I was able to determine the location and spacing of the 3 AN3 bolt holes that I would drill through the fuel valve bracket into the instrument panel’s wood hardpoint.

I drilled 3 small pilot holes into the fuel bracket as guides for the bigger holes.  I’m using 3 bolts vs the plan’s 2 bolts since the fuel selector valve will actually sit just aft and above this bracket.  Thus, technically this is the fuel selector valve bracket’s bracket.  Clearly, with the type of cantilever action going on here I need as much strength as I can get.

I then spent some time dialing in the exact fuel selector valve bracket location, then took the plunge.  Using my long drill bits I first started with a 1/8″ bit and drilled the holes.

I then stepped up to a 10″ long x #10 drill bit and drilled the final bolt holes through both the bracket and the panel wood hardpoint, with the resulting mess shown below.

Here you can see both the 3 bolts installed and the aftermath of the drilling operation.

And just another shot of the temporarily installed AN3 bolts, with the area cleaned up.

Finally, here’s a shot of the 3 fuel selector valve bracket’s AN3 bolts poking through into the nose wheel well.  The bolt on the left looks like it’s angled down a bit, but that’s just an optical illusion since it’s shorter than the other bolts.

I then removed the 3 bolts and took a small bit of leftover epoxy I had on hand, mixed it with some alcohol, and treated these wood holes and most of the other ones I could find on the fuselage.  Treating the wood holes with alcohol-thinned epoxy allows the wood to absorb the epoxy and coats it so that any moisture is minimized and your bolts don’t rust inside the wood holes (this action kept me from finalizing the riveting of K1000-3 nutplates to the fuel valve bracket since one hole had been pushed slightly out of round by the wood piece I had clamped in place to secure the fuel valve bracket . . . since these holes were still wet).

With my valve #3 having sat on the sidelines for quite a number of hours, allowing for the flox to cure, I then drilled 2 holes up through the duct reinforcement plate & extra plies of reinforcement glass, into the floxed valve attach plate.

As a point of note, valve #3’s position below would have ALL the air flowing forward to the pilot.

I then riveted –in not so pretty fashion– 2 round head rivets to secure valve #3 in place.

Again, below I placed valve #3 in the position showing its configuration with all the air flowing back to the GIB vents.

Here’s a closer shot of the rivets & flox securing valve #3, the PIC/GIB air distribution valve, in place.

And a shot of the 2 rivets from the underside and external duct view.

Tomorrow I plan on pressing forward . . . so stay tuned folks!

I started out today pulling off the peel ply from the aft side duct piece that will be joined to the forward side to make up the middle duct assembly, or “plenum,” in the pilot seat area. After removing the foam form and cleaning it up, I then taped the 2 midpoint duct pieces into place in the fuselage.

I then laid up 1 ply of BID over the exposed joint of the 2 halves.  I then peel plied the layup.

I made up a bit too much epoxy so when I finished the layup above I quickly shaped a piece of urethane foam and taped it up on the first duct piece coming forward from the pilot seat back.  I then laid up 2 plies of “trash” BID over the taped foam “duct bump.” This raised protrusion will be the entry point for the #3 valve control cable, which will run through the duct and control the valve internally.

A couple of hours later I pulled the bump layup off the duct, removed the tape and pulled the foam form & tape out.  I then trimmed the glass and set the control cable entry bump back onto the duct.

A head-on shot of the control cable entry bump set on the duct.

I then worked on the configuration of the pilot seat initial thigh support wedge that also serves as a cross-cabin air duct.

Since I needed to increase the top surface angle, with the front edge coming up, for a better intersect with the actual thigh support plate, I cut and shaped a 1/4″ thick foam bottom edge spacer.  This took some trial and error to dial in due to the curves in the fuselage floor/seat pan.  I also needed to finalize my glassing sequence and layup schedule, but it was getting late so I left it for later.

I did however layup the final BID tape joining the front & aft pieces of the PIC seat area duct “plenum” together.  I then peel plied it.

A few hours later, I pulled the peel ply off the second and final ply of BID joining the front & aft pieces of the PIC seat area duct “plenum”.

Of course then I had to mock it up to check it out.  Fits like a glove and I think it will work out perfectly.  I do have some more glassing to do on this component though since I need to make an exit duct on the inboard side that feeds air into the pilot seat thigh support initial wedge/duct.

Tomorrow I’ll continue to finalize this PIC area ductwork and initial thigh support structure, but I’d also like to finalize valve #3 on the GIB area air ductwork.

I started out today adding a sub-page to Chapter 24 for the GIB kick plate when I realized that my page addition had inexplicably wiped out about 3/4 of my build log link menu that shows in the upper right hand corner of this site.  I was able to recreate it after about 1.5 hours.  I then got on with my original task to port over my build posts to the build log. That in itself took over 2 hours.  Finally, I tweaked the Chapter 9 build page by parsing it out into different sub-pages to make it a lot more organized. Tack on an hour+ or two for that as well.

I then finally made it down into the shop to pull the peel ply off the Matco parking brake Adel clamp hardpoint Clickbond layup.  I cleaned it up a bit and it all looked good.

I then mounted the Adel clamp to the Clickbond and also terminated the control wire into the brake valve lever arm nut.  I worked the parking brake back & forth a bit (brake on & off) and the action was nice, solid and smooth.  (I was going to take a quick video of it but my phone is stuck on portrait mode right now for some reason!).

With everything secure on the front end, I then positioned and 5-min glued the remaining forward parking brake control cable conduit.  It may seem unnecessary at this point to secure the conduit, but I simply want to ensure that it never gets snagged, hung up on or in the way.

As the prior two secured cable conduit areas, I filled the voids around the cable conduit with micro and then glassed 1 ply of BID over it.  I then peel plied the layup.

Besides the parking brake, tonight I worked extensively on the pilot seat base cross duct. There was a lot of interesting stuff to come out of the initial mockups of the pilot seat base cross duct, but I think the biggest impacting one is that I learned that I had to move the planned location of my ELT to ?!?  I have some ideas, but I need to dial it in… soon.

I also assessed the duct situation and drew a bunch of hash marks all over the inside of the pilot seat area.  I was planning on building the PIC/GIB distro valve (valve #3) for the heating duct, but it got too late and I couldn’t cut the material due to the noise it would make.

However, tomorrow is another day!  Since I’m more than caught up on my website tasks, I seriously do intend to get my hands really dirty on this build tomorrow.

Yes, it finally happened guys!  I’m back in the shop.  I have to tell you after being out of it for a couple weeks I had to get my sea legs back as I was suffering a little bit of analysis paralysis on what to start in on first.  Luckily I had made my task list up the other morning so I just grabbed it and started at task #1.  That saved me from spinning my wheels and wasting time.

I started off with a bunch of small layups, thus the title of this blog post.  First off, I sealed off the significant gap between the fresh air/heater air valve (Valve #1) plate and the duct sidewall.  I taped off the valve plate with brown packing tape (I’m out of clear) and kept the valve plate up flush to what will be the back wall of the duct by taping it to a 12″ ruler that I laid across the other duct back wall edges as well.

I then added some flox along the edge of the taped up valve plate and added a ply of BID. I then peel plied it.

Since I used fast hardener in my epoxy, here’s a shot a few hours later when I pulled all the tape and cleaned it up.  The top pic shows the valve in its normal closed state (fresh air through the ducts) while the bottom pic shows the valve open and the side edge seal at work (diverted air to heat exchanger).

When I created the valve plate edge seal above, I also laid up a ply of glass on the inside of the bottom horizontal duct edge and peel plied it.  In addition, I cut a small rectangular reinforcement piece of 0.5mm aluminum and floxed in place on the outside bottom edge of the duct and covered it with 1 ply of BID.  This too got peel plied.

These layups and aluminum plate will serve to reinforce the installation of the PIC/GIB air distribution valve (valve #3) when I install it.

Then, for the first time, I test mounted my Matco parking brake valve on and thru the finished & painted forward NG30 cover plate.  Besides wanting to ensure the valve fit and clearance for the operation of the lever arm, I also needed it in place to determine the length of the parking brake control lever cable to the pull T-handle.

I played around with the control cable length for a while and estimated as closely as I could the final position of the parking brake pull T-handle.  Once I decided on the parking brake T-handle location, I cut the entire cable to length, and then cut the outer cable sheath to expose the last 6″ or so of the control cable wire.

I then cut the 1/4″ Nylaflow control cable conduit and roughed it up with sandpaper.  I also sanded all the contact point areas along the path of the 1/4″ Nylaflow conduit along the left side lower corner of the nose wheel well cover (NB) and along the bottom edge & side of the left NG30 plate.

I then 5-min glued about a 6″ length of the Nylaflow into place along the bottom corner of the nose wheel well cover (NB) and let it cure.  After the 5-min glue cured, I then micro’d around the conduit and laid up a prepregged ply of BID 1.5″ wide x 9″ long.

I then peel plied the edges of the initial parking brake control cable conduit layup.

Since the path of the parking brake control cable conduit will require a sort of an “S” curve on the lower aft area of the left NG30 plate, I decided to secure & glass it in place in smaller, bite-sized sections in order to minimize my chances of any given section pulling free or going haywire as I set each segment in its correct spot.

I uploaded the above pics here side-by-side to give you somewhat of a panoramic view of the entire parking brake control cable run from T-handle to parking brake valve.  Again, this is on the list of things needing done before I close up the top of the nose and access to these areas that I’m currently working is greatly restricted.

I have to say that there is often a lot of research, planning and design time spent that I don’t really report on.  After I did all the above, I spent a good half hour assessing and reviewing the placement and configuration of the two pilot seat thigh support ribs. Moreover, I finalized the details on aft side of the pilot thigh support, which unlike most Long-EZs will be modified to incorporate a triangular duct across the aft edge for the right foot heater vent.

Tomorrow my next door neighbor is having a Labor Day cookout. Since I’ll be over at his place for most of the afternoon and evening, it will be yet another light build day.  But I do plan on getting as much done as possible tomorrow on this internal cockpit stuff.