This blog post covers the past few days.

Most of Friday was spent helping Guy retweak his right main gear, which we needed to angle it even further inboard than we had before.  This job took a good half the day.

Related to this gear bending redo, which I learned much on, was a notable side event where I did my first taxi in a Long-EZ after all these years of building one!  Guy wanted me to check his brakes while he viewed the wheel-to-gear angle while it was in motion.  So I did a little bit of taxiing about.  Even with a not-so-great right brake it was a good experience!

Since my last post I’ve been working the top of the left winglet to finalize that by sanding the added micro fill, then dry sanding with 150 grit, then wet sanding with the same.  Then rinse and repeat on a couple of low spots.  Same thing with the perimeters around the wing leading edge lights: a couple of cycles of sanding, fills, and more sanding.

Thus the reason I didn’t post any pics of those same ‘ol tasks.

After removing the top cowling, a new task I knocked out was drilling some 1/16″ thick G10 phenolic to use as “washers” that will be embedded in the top cowl front corner micro fills, to help prevent the CAMLOCs from sinking into the micro over time as I have discovered they do on the bottom cowling.

I didn’t drill out the middle hole to the same diameter as the top cowl CAMLOC holes yet, since I didn’t want to have to get the alignment perfect while floxing them into pace. I’ll drill the center holes out afterwards.

After the dry run, I then prepped the “washers” and floxed them into place, securing them with clamps.

I have another G10 “washer” like these to add to the left front corner of the top cowling, and then I’ll probably add 2-3 plies around the top center CAMLOC hole since it only needs a 0.02-0.03″ of fill to match the surface level of the micro finish.

My goal this coming week is to be completed with finishing the top & bottom cowlings, and have them prepped for primer/paint.  Also the turtle deck micro’d up and finished as well.  Finally, I plan on removing the engine, giving it a good cleaning and then bagging it up until after I get the bird painted.

Soooo… yeah…. it’s been rather chilly here over the past few weeks.  Weather temps typically ranging from teens to low 40’s (°F).   For those tracking my build that are not in the states, we had a pretty good ODD winter snowstorm here on the shores of eastern NC.

Here’s my shop under a blanket of snow.

We have had an odd “warmer” day here and there (in the 50’s) and I’ve got a little bit done in the shop, such as wet sanding, that doesn’t require me to have those monster torpedo heaters on full time.  Needless to say I’ve been getting some non-airplane build stuff knocked out.

Here’s my front yard and driveway.

One of those things I’ve been working on, which I don’t need much more than a heat lamp to keep things warm, is my buddy Guy’s prop that got crunched when his airplane went up on its ‘tails’ during a condition inspection (If you recall, I repaired his aft lower winglets).  Well, his Silver Bullet prop also was drug into the melee and suffered a dinged tip.

Here’s how the ding tipped should look as compared to the other side.  These pics were mainly taken to query both Marc Zeitlin and Gary Hertzler on suggested fix actions.

After going back and forth with Gary Hertzler a few times, he recommended using JB Weld as the agent to fix this prop ding.  Here I’ve attached a taped stir stick to the bottom side of the prop (relatively, as it’s sitting here) and after cleaning the tip with Acetone, slathered on some JB weld.  I then left it to cure a minimum of 24 hours.

And here’s the JB Weld-repaired prop tip after sanding, both sides.  Now it’s ready for paint.

On my bird (with the WX warming up) I carefully filled in the thin spots of micro around the perimeter of each wing leading edge landing light, mainly on the side edge of the wing light pocket opening where it intersects the carbon fiber flange, but in a few areas I needed some fill on the the top edge as well.  I then epoxy wiped the filled cleco holes and the immediate surrounding area around the wing LE light openings.

I also re-epoxy wiped the top of the left winglet, where I installed 2x threaded inserts that will serve to secure a video camera bracket.

On the top cowl intersection with the strake, I did some fills on both sides.  On the left (pic 1) I did a minor fill on the cowl front edge whereas on the right side (pic 2) all the fills were on the strake side, both outboard edge and also a good bit on the inboard shoulder bump.

Yes, trying to knock out all the minor micro fill stuff as I press forward to get ALL the micro finishing done on this bird.

Praying for warm weather here in NC!