Today I wired up the wing leading edge lights to test out the light units themselves and the switch and power wiring circuit as well.

Here we have the left wing leading edge light powered on.

And the right wing leading edge light powered on too.

I threw together a very short video to show these lights in action, mainly since it’s hard to see the wig-wag feature in a still pic… ha!  Enjoy.

Moreover, Jess and I will be heading out of town for New Years, so it will be a few days into January before I’m back in town and back on the build.

Happy New Years!

I didn’t get nearly as much done today on the build as I had planned on, but I did make a small dent.

I started off by taping off the right wing around the leading edge light pocket, as well as the lens flange and pocket floor, for primer and paint.  I then sanded the aluminum light bracket support standoffs and cleaned them with acetone, before installing a screw in the end of each one to protect the ends and threads from paint.

I shot the pocket insides with a couple coats of primer before heading out for some errands and spending the evening with Jess and her son.

Upon returning home later in the evening I shot the leading edge light pocket with a few coats of black paint.  I then let that set up for the requisite hour annotated on the can before hitting it with a couple rounds of clear coat.  Here’s the result of that immediately after shooting the clear coat.

In between the rounds of paint, I worked on the right leading edge light bracket, riveting in 4x MK1000-6 platenuts, including the ground wire on the inboard bottom screw position.  This completes the required platenut installs on both light brackets, that will allow me to install the lights into the brackets AFTER those are installed into the leading edge light pockets.

[I’ll note that Randi and Chrissi sent me a few pics of their leading light install, where they used -6 platenuts on the light brackets.  I had planned on simply using a nylock nut on the aft side of the bracket for each screw, and thought the platenuts were a little overkill for these light brackets.  After getting to a certain point in my own LE light construction, I then realized that since the space is so tight within the light pocket, you can’t install the light attached to the bracket as a unit, but rather must install the bracket first, then install the light to the bracket.  This little data point pretty much mandates the use of platenuts as you can’t reach in around the back side to secure a loose nut for each of the four screws securing the light to the bracket… there’s simply no space to do so.  Just one of many Aha! moments for me during these leading edge light installs]

Tomorrow I plan on completing the lens install prep by taping up the light lenses and securing them in their final position on each light flange, then filling the minor perimeter gaps with micro.  Once cure, I’ll pull the lenses and clean up the micro.  This micro along with the cleco-hole-filling micro will get a few rounds of epoxy wipes, then all will get sanded to eliminate any blemishes on the wing surface in prep for wing painting (which is again why I installed these lights now).

I started out today on the right wing leading edge light using my new light bracket support standoff drilling jig to drill holes in the aft wall of the light pocket.  The hole on the right side of the pic looks off due to parallax and the angle of the jig hole.  By looking directly into the hole at the proper angle the hole would be aligned to the jig.

After getting the holes drilled and foam cleared out, I cleaned the standoffs with acetone in prep for floxing and microing them into the standoff holes in the aft wall of the right wing LE light pocket.

Here we have the light bracket support standoffs floxed and micro’d into place, with the bracket attached in place.  You can see a couple of foam spacers used to ensure the bracket is as far aft as possible inside the pocket, but not too far back as to mess with the clearance of the installed light.

Before mixing up the epoxy to make the flox and micro for installing the right LE light bracket support standoffs above, I also drilled and prepped the 2 threaded inserts for the top of the left winglet to secure the video camera mount.  I then floxed/micro’d them into place as well.

With a good round of floxing and microing under my belt, I then taped up the left wing LE light pocket edges and surrounding wing for primer and paint.  I sanded down the support standoffs and cleaned them up with acetone.

I then shot the inside of the light pocket with a couple coats of primer.

I then hit it with 3 medium coats of black paint.  After the black paint cured for not quite an hour, I shot it with 2 coats of satin clear.  At least I was shooting for a satin look… looks pretty glossy to me, but we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.

Then, after another 45 minutes or so I pulled all the surrounding tape, paper and plastic away from the left wing leading edge light pocket.  Here are some shots of how it looks currently.  Again, I’ll let the paint and clear coat cure overnight and assess it tomorrow.

My last task of the evening was to install K1000-6 platenuts onto the left wing light bracket.  I also constructed a couple of ground wires (one per side) with FastOn ring terminals and installed one of them between the bracket and the inboard platenut.

And here we have the light installed into the bracket.

Tomorrow I’ll repeat the primer/paint/clear coat and bracket configuration on the right wing leading edge light.

Today was a heavy machining day in that I did 4 individual jobs to mill a pair of fuel cap retaining tabs (below) and a pair of wing leading edge light brackets (further below), both pairs newer and improved versions than the previous ones I made.

Although I machined the light brackets first, I didn’t get any action shots on the mill like I did with the fuel cap tabs, so I’m showing those first.

Here’s the pair of new and improved fuel cap retaining tabs, used primarily as a safety feature to ensure an unchecked/unfastened gas cap doesn’t fly off the strake and into the prop.  I machined the bottom one out of stock that was about 0.05″ smaller than my design, simply because I don’t want to waste any (now) expensive aluminum if I can compromise a hair on a self-generated design.  Thus, it looks a scant bit different (it’s also at a different angle) than the top one.

Here is a collective shot of all my machining tasks of the day… each job going fairly well, some better than others (wink).

It took me about 20 minutes to clean up each wing light bracket, after which I mounted the bracket support standoffs to the bracket.  The first pic is of the CAD diagram I got from Nick Ugolini with the dimensions for creating a wing leading edge light.  I colored in the standoffs and bracket in pencil (pic 1) and then did my best to show that my work here is spot on dimension-wise as it sits atop the diagram (pic 2).

I spent well over an hour assessing and double-checking my light position, as well as using my drilling jig (sorry, no pic of that) to drill out the 3 standoff holes in the aft wall of the left wing leading edge light.  I then test fit the light again, and although snug, this time around it fits and is definitely workable.

I cleaned and prepped the standoff holes before cleaning and prepping the standoffs for flox and micro, which I then worked over the next 30 minutes.

Here we have the left wing leading edge light bracket attached to the 3 support standoffs which are floxed/micro’d into their respective holes in the aft wall of the light pocket.  On the bottom left you can see a small block of foam, which is a 1.2″ spacer between aft wall and bracket.

I then left the standoffs to cure overnight and called it a night.

Pushing forward!

I started off the build today by checking out the fit and configuration of my newly modified wing leading edge light mounting bracket… specifically, the 3D printed mockup of it.  As I’ve highlighted before, it’s amazing what less than a 1/4″ difference makes on this build, and here on the light bracket it has made a huge difference in allowing me to both position and center the light in the wing leading edge light pocket.

To ensure I had enough clearance between the light body and the light bracket aluminum support standoffs I went ahead and mounted those to my 3D printed bracket mockup.  And as I expected, it all passed muster.

I then spent another couple hours finishing up the wing light mounting brackets’ 3/8″ diameter 6061 support standoffs by tapping and threading the 3 right wing standoffs with 10-32 threads, and then knurling the aft half and creating flox grip grooves on the lathe for all of them.  As you can see, these guys are all ready for install into the aft wall of the respective wing leading edge light pockets.

Earlier in the day I had redesigned my wing leading edge light mounting brackets’ support standoff holes drilling jigs in CAD to match the footprint of the new brackets.  I thinned them down considerably to eliminate over an hour of print time, and was able to get them both printed in under 4 hours.  And here they are, hot off the 3D printer!

Tomorrow is Christmas, so first off, Merry Christmas! everybody.  I’m not sure how much work, if any, I’ll get done but my next task is to machine the new wing light mounting brackets (which I didn’t get to today) before getting the wing lights set into position in each wing leading edge pocket.  I’ll then get the support standoffs floxed/micro’d into place.

Yes, this has been about a 2 week detour on getting these wing leading edge lights installed, but I think in the end they will add a lot of needed visibility to my bird, as well as extra light during night ops… not to mention add at least 20 knots to my ramp speed! (Smile)

I started off today pulling the peel ply, razor trimming the overhanging carbon fiber and cleaning up the edges of the right wing leading edge light lower flange.  As on the left wing yesterday, this completes the construction of the right wing leading edge light compartment.

I then started working the configuration and the placement of the light inside its bracket inside the left wing leading edge light pocket.  Just as with the drilling jig, I hit a snag as I realized that the bracket for the light is just a skooch too big.  As with too many things on this bird, I’m now in the realm of dealing with 1/16″ to 1/8″ clearances to get things to fit.

So back to the drawing board, er, uh, CAD modeling in Fusion 360.  I pulled up the wing leading edge light bracket CAD file that I had completed in January this year —nearly a year ago— and reworked its dimensions.  I narrowed the height by 0.11″ each side, so nearly a quarter inch total in height.  This may result in the light-retaining screws (middle 4 screws) overhanging the bracket a bit, but “engineering” compromises are king in this build.  I also narrowed the bracket over 3/16″ (~0.2″) as I brought the corner screw positions in closer towards the light body at an angle, so both vertically and horizontally… in line with my height and width reductions.  The single screw and standoff attach on what is the inboard side remained unmodified.

As per my modus operandi, I kicked off a 3D print of my new reduced-in-size light bracket as I headed back out to the shop.

Out in the shop I took 3 of the four 6″ lengths of 6061 aluminum rods that I had ordered eons ago from McMaster-Carr and cut them in half on the horizontal band saw.  I then chucked one up in the lathe, faced off the cut end before I drilled & tapped it with 10-32 threads.

Here we have the 10-32 thread tapping (pic 1) and testing the threads with a #10 screw (pic 2).

I knocked out drilling and tapping the left wing leading edge light bracket’s 3x support standoffs with 10-32 threads before calling it a night.  I will knurl and groove the other ends of these bracket supports since they will get embedded in flox/micro in 3 holes drilled into the leading edge light’s pocket aft wall (thus the drilling jig).

Yes, as quite often happens during this build, adjustments and redo’s must be done. Tomorrow I plan on verifying/finalizing the brackets’ new configuration and machining a pair of new ones.  If all goes well I may just knock out machining the final (also modified!) fuel cap security tabs as well . . .  pushing on!

I started out today pulling the peel ply, razor trimming the overhanging carbon fiber and cleaning up the edges of the left wing leading edge light lower flange.  This completes the construction of the left wing leading edge light compartment with only the actual light & bracket install along with running the electrical wire cable left to do (ok, and attaching the lens at some point down the road).

On the right wing leading edge light pocket, I pulled the peel ply off of the 2-ply BID layup and cleaned up the remaining peel ply boogers.

Then, as I did on the left wing light flange, I taped it up with green tape to make the marked cut line more visible (pic 1) before I trimmed off the excess flange, making it 1/2″ wide all the way around (pic 2).

I then removed the tape and the clecos to take a look… not bad!

I test-fitted the lens, which took a little bit of sanding down the bottom edge and outboard corner to get it dialed in and fitting snugly.  There are still some slight gaps around the perimeter that I will most likely fill in with micro.

Also, as I did on the left side, I laid up a single ply of carbon fiber on the floor of the light pocket, overlapping the bottom perimeter edge of the flange and continuing about half way up the inside leading edge of the flange.  I then peel plied the layup and left it to cure overnight.

With my final layup done on the right wing leading edge light compartment, I then tried out my 3D printed wing light mount drilling jig inside the left wing light pocket.  It was then I realized —which may not be overly obvious or visible in the pic below— that the outboard corners of the jig were preventing me from centering the jig in relation to the light opening in the flange.

As a certified Neanderthal airplane builder (that’s not really a thing…) I simply grabbed my belt sander and trimmed down the outboard corners of my 3D printed jig.  While the smell of burnt plastic wasn’t the greatest, it did do the trick.

And now the light mount support drilling jig fits inside the left wing light pocket… I still have to do this (most likely) on the right wing light mount support drilling jig as well.

And here’s a clearer pic without my ham-fisted hand in the way… my plan is to work on the 3 light mount standoffs (per wing) on the lathe to get them cleaned up and tapped with 10-32 threads for install.

My guess is that as Christmas draws nearer, my build time in the shop will both be shorter and more sporadic.  In addition, Jess and I are heading to Ashville for a few days over New Years, so clearly no airplane building —at least physically… it’s always going on in my head!  Hoo-ah!

Ok, starting off here are the two respective wing leading edge light mount standoffs’ drilling jigs that will provide 2.5° inboard and 7° downward angles to the lights as they are mounted onto the aft walls of the light pockets, which are themselves very close to 90° perpendicular to the centerline of the bird.

On the left wing leading edge light with the now cured in place lens flange, I removed the clamps for access but left the clecos in place as I taped & marked the 1/2″ flange width (pic 1) and cut my marked lines with the Fein saw (pic 2).  Although the flange-securing flox is cured, I didn’t want any extra pressure on the flange so simply left the clecos in place during the cutting ops.

I then removed the clecos and tape to reveal the installed flange.  You may note that I cut the bottom of the flange in two to allow me to get it into the light pocket without having to trim too much of the internal flange lip off.  Also, I didn’t want to stress the flange too much or crack it trying to get it into position.

I did a quick fit test of the lens on the flange and it looks fantastic so far (IMHO).

Now, I did the layup below along with right wing leading edge light pocket layup further below… but to smooth out the hard edged transition of the lens flange inside the light pocket, as well as to further physically secure the flange via glass/CF to the light pocket AND remedy the minor cut gap in the bottom center of the flange, I simply added a dry micro (vs flox, to minimize weight) transition around the sides and aft edge of the lower flange before laying up a ply of carbon fiber.  I then peel plied the layup.  [Also note that I filled in the cleco holes with micro]

On the right wing leading edge light I set the flange in place and drilled out the cleco holes as I installed each cleco along the way.  When I was finished installing the clecos and verifying this dry run install was good, I pulled the clecos and removed the flange.

I then cut 2 plies of BID which were very close in size to the BID plies I used on the left wing leading edge light pocket.  I also cut the major peel ply piece that would cover the majority of the glass after applied.

I reversed the BID ply layup order on this side as compared to the left side, with the smaller of the 2 plies going in first, which covers just the blue foam on the sides and aft wall of the pocket, and really doesn’t overlap onto any glass (pic 1).  I then partially laid up BID ply #2 by only wetting out the aft wall area and NOT wetting out the overlapping top, bottom or side portions of this BID ply (pic 2)… but rather turned them inward out of the way to allow me to then install and flox the carbon fiber lens flange into place.

I was scrambling to get this all done, so no intermediate pics before this one with the carbon fiber flange floxed into place, secured by clecos which in turn allowed me to finish laying up the light pocket BID ply #2.

Here we have another shot of the floxed/clecoed in place flange as well as the glassed internal surfaces of the right wing leading edge light pocket.  As you can see, I also peel plied the majority of the layup inside the light pocket.

With the requisite shots of the inside light pocket BID layups completed, I then clamped the top and bottom horizontal edges of the flange to the wing skin to ensure a nice tight attachment of the two surfaces.

And with another round of tasks out of the way on the wing leading edge lights complete, I left these layups to cure overnight and called it a night.

Moving onward!

I started out today by razor trimming the cured layup inside the left wing leading edge light pocket.  I then pulled all the peel ply and cleaned it up.  I’m very happy with the results.

I then started work on trimming down the carbon fiber flange for the left wing leading edge light.  After I got the flange trimmed and fitted, with a little extra sanding on the inside of the leading edges to knock down some extra thick glass, I drilled and test fit it into place with clecos.  With the dry run good, I then added flox to the edges and clecoed and clamped the left wing light pocket CF flange into place.

I also razor trimmed and pulled peel ply on the right wing leading edge light pocket edge layups, before working on that flange as well.  First I got the flange trimmed enough to fit into the light pocket.

And then trimmed it down just a bit more around the exterior edges, while also making the internal notch a bit bigger as well (pic 1).  I also pre-drilled the cleco holes around the perimeter of the leading edge light pocket opening (pic 2).  Since I’m not building an RV, I only have a few smaller diameter clecos on hand and they were currently all employed securing the floxed left flange in place.

I did a final test fit on the flange, which was good.  Tomorrow I will drill the cleco holes into the flange and set it in place to check all is good before floxing it into place.

I will note that on this right side I plan to layup the interior of the pocket first with 2 plies of BID before I install and flox the flange into place… kind of a do-it-all-at-once deal.

Oh, and I’m back to the plan of using a drilling jig to drill the 3 light bracket securing standoff holes.  In fact, I’m actually making up 2 drilling jigs —one for each side— that will allow me to aim the light inboard an extra 2.5° and down about 7°.  Yes, a bit of a compromise, but those are the numbers I’m comfortable with as I’m hoping to install and wire these lights, test them and press forward with nothing but final minor adjustments and lens install after the wings are painted.

The pic above is a screenshot from my CAD file, while the actual one is currently printing out (nearly 3 hours) on the 3D printer.  I’ll have shots of the jigs tomorrow.

Today was all about the wings leading edge lights again, in getting the glass inside the pockets cleaned up, sanded and prepped for glass layups.  I spent at least 45 minutes per side using my Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to knock down the thick layer of cured micro, and then the small sanding drum on the Dremel to clean out the fine thin layer of micro that was still left over after the main stuff was cleared out.  I finished it off with a good bit of hand sanding with my Perma-Grit tools and 32 grit sandpaper.  Of course the really fun part of it all was getting the underside of the wing skin inside the pocket.

Here we have both the right wing (pic 1) and the left wing (pic 2) leading edge light pockets internal glass surfaces ready for more glass layups.

Another tip I got from the Cozy Girrrls was to check the wing edge thickness around the perimeter of the pocket since it needs to be a minimum of 0.065″ thick to allow the 1/16″ thick light lens to seat fully and flush with the wing surface.  Good point here, because just slapping and floxing the internal flange into place might be on the sequential task list, but some measuring and assessment is required to ensure the final pieces all fit together nicely in the end.

On the right side I got varying thicknesses when I measured all the way around.  The bottom leading edge was plenty thick enough while I got some readings in the 0.05-ish range on the upper leading edge.  Same with the top and bottom edges.  So I figured one ply of UNI should do the trick, and I’ll assess from there.

Here we have some plies of UNI laid up on some of the edges of the right wing leading edge light pocket.  I of course peel plied the layups.

On the left side I was getting a number of light pocket edge measurements around 0.047″… hmmm?  Definitely a couple plies of filler glass to get that edge thicker before the flange goes in.

My quandary was do I knock out the major glassing now, that will also add the required plies to the perimeter pocket edges?  Or do I simply do the pocket edges as I did on the right side? (and as the Cozy Girrrls recommended).

Well, not one to always listen to conventional advice (clearly!), I decided to do the whole enchilada on the left side.  I took a myriad of measurements, created a 3-ply (BID, UNI, BID) layup schedule, and made patterns for each ply of glass.  And then cut the glass (and peel ply!).

It was very late, but I wanted to get this thing glassed and curing while I was sleeping… so I pressed forward by mixing some Pro-Set epoxy and whipping up some micro, which I applied to the blue wing foam surfaces.  I also used thicker micro for the corner fillets and a few sanding divots.

The first ply in was BID and it covered the entire internal surface of the left wing’s leading light pocket.  A bit tricky going in —not surprisingly— but after working it a bit, and being patient, I coaxed it all to lay in nicely.

Ply #2 was UNI, and it only covered the aft wall, then forward on the inside wing skin (top & bottom flange edges) and just covered the inboard & outboard side edges of the pocket. In short, it covered everything but the foam sides inside the pocket.  Hard to see, but if you look closely at the conduit access hole and right side aft wall you can see wisps of the UNI strands.

Ply #3 was BID and crossed 90° to ply #2, covering the pocket aft wall and foam sides, but not the top and bottom original wing skin.  I grabbed this shot as soon as I put the BID into place so it was visible —before it wetted out completely.

I then peel plied all the just-laid up glass inside the left wing leading edge light pocket.

The layup went smoothly, but with all the prep and pattern-making for the layup plies, it made for a very late night by the time I was done.  Tomorrow I’ll press forward to get as much knocked out on these wing leading edge lights as possible.