My final goal for today was to get the longerons, turtledeck and forward fuselage sides epoxy wiped, and I’m pleased to report that I completed that task.

Of course to get to the point of epoxy wiping all these surfaces required well over 4 hours of sanding…  all in the past at this point.

Here we have the left side epoxy wiped, with the forward nose area, stopping just under the canard (pic 1) and the longeron, cowl/strake shoulder and the turtledeck (pic 2).

I had planned on doing 4 coats total, but besides it getting really late, since I had to use a brush on the narrow longerons I ended up putting more epoxy on per coat than I normally would with a squeegee, so I stopped at 3 coats.

Here we have the right side.  In addition to the right side turtledeck, shoulder, longeron and forward fuselage side, I also epoxy wiped the repair on the right strake leading edge, the top of each wing root edge, and a couple of micro fill spots on the rudders and winglets.

Just prior to initiating the epoxy wipes, I shot this quick video to show the “exciting”  initial operational test of the canopy internal lock handle functioning with microswitch block mounted on the sidewall forward of the instrument panel.  As I mention in the video, I still have some dialing in to do, but the operational design seems to be working.

Still pressing forward!

I started out today whipping up some micro and slathering up my repair on the right strake leading edge, and finishing off the micro’ing of the right longeron, as well as adding some to the inside of the slanted edge of aft nose/avionics cover.

I had some micro left over in the cup, so almost on a dare I applied it to the perimeter lip of the nose hatch… I had JUST enough to cover the lip.

With a good application of micro curing, I then made up an 8-32 threaded insert on the lathe for the canopy internal lock micro-switch block second screw hole.

I’m reusing this pic from yesterday to give an idea of how I floxed the second threaded insert into place for the canopy internal lock micro-switch block.

I then taped up plastic over the cabin so that I could sand the left side longeron and forward fuselage without covering the inside of the plane with dust.

Here is a before shot (pic 1) and then an after shot after I spent a good few hours sanding (pic 2).

I then did a good bit of sanding on the right side as well, here on some contrast and compare pics of left vs right side, both sanded…. note the intersecting lines of the where the aft nose/avionics cover intersects the front corner of the canopy at the canopy bottom edge line.  This is what those aft corner layups were all about on the aft nose cover (to fix the intersect line).

A closer shot of the right side canopy-fuselage-aft nose cover intersection… yeah, some very slight bit more tweaking required.

I also grabbed this shot to show that the line between canopy skirt and the aft nose cover is no longer some gaping hole like the grand canyon!

Pressing forward.

I started off today by marking the aft nose/avionics cover’s aft corners for trimming, which I did immediately after grabbing these pics.

After installing the aft nose/avionics cover back on the bird, and taping up some seams, I then finished adding micro to the front edge of the right longeron.

In addition, I laid up the final ply of BID on the damaged right strake leading edge.  I then peel plied that layup.

I also did a fair amount micro’ing on the left side as well, in the area in front of the strake along the longeron, and also around and under the canard and aft nose/avionics cover.

I then taped the canopy internal lock micro-switch block to the left sidewall of the avionics bay, forward of the instrument panel, to ensure it would not cause any clearance issues with the GNS-480 GPS navigator mounting tray.

Here’s another shot of the canopy internal lock micro-switch block on the left sidewall, which has a low enough profile to not interfere with the GNS-480 GPS navigator mounting tray (pic 1).  I then drilled the lower screw mounting hole with the micro-switch block in place (pic 2).

I finished drilling out the screw mounting hole and then prepped & floxed an 8-32 Nutsert into the hole (no pic).

And with that, I left the floxed the Nutsert to cure overnight and called it a night.

Well, when it rains it pours… seems like I’m clearing out all the upcoming spring mistakes early.

So it was a late night last night.  I got a lot of things done.  And although it was a nice warm day, as par usual over the last week the nights have been chilly.  I set a box with stuff in it (for weight) on top of a stool, with 2 heat lamps attached to the stiff cardboard —both aimed at the micro I had just added onto the right longeron… the temp was low 50’s in the shop, and very likely to get much colder than that.

Well, this morning as I got about 10 feet from the door of the shop, I could smell IT: the godawful odor of burnt epoxy, fiberglass and micro.

This is what I found.

Apparently, one of the light clamps had shifted, and it toppled the box over with the lights “conveniently” face planting right onto the strake leading edge.  My saving grace was the light with the cross grill across front landed on the BL23 junction, whereas the bare light landed inboard on the storage area side of the strake leading edge.

Here’s a look on the inside of the slightly cooked discolored paint.

Well, after opening up all the doors and windows, turning a fan on and letting the shop air out for a good half hour, I then got to work clearing out the charred fiberglass on the outer surface of the strake leading edge (pic 1).

The burn was very localized to the heat lamp face, and the glass beyond the burned glass was fine… and still very strong in that I couldn’t push it in at all.  The internal foam had melted away about 1/2″ to 3/4″ from the edge of the hole.  The brown stuff inside the hole is the melted foam and micro attached to the inside glass.  I then took my Fein saw and cut the perimeter of the hole at a shallow angle for the upcoming glass repair (pic 2).

To ensure I had “aircraft quality” foam reinforcing the edges of the hole, and as internal dams for the pour foam, I cut 3 blue foam wedges and micro’d them into place (one each side and one on the bottom).

I also discovered a slight delam area between the glass layers on the outboard side, so I cut the exterior delammed glass away.

As the micro’d foam wedges inside the hole of the burnt leading edge spot were curing, I then finished adding micro to the corner junction of the left longeron to left strake.  Here is the front side.

And along the aft side.

I also added about a foot more micro to the front side of the right longeron as well, just beneath the canopy lip edge.

I added pour foam to the inside edges of the burn damaged leading edge of the right strake.

After the internal perimeter pour foam cured, I cut the foam flush with the hole opening, made up a taped cardboard dam and secure it in place with more duct tape (pic 1).  I then whipped up some pour foam and carefully poured it into the dam and left it to cure (pic 2).

After trimming and sanding down the added pour foam (pic 1), I prepped the foam with wet micro before laying up 2 plies of UNI that crossed each other at a 30° bias (pic 2).

I then peel plied the layup and left it to cure overnight.

Tomorrow I’ll add a final ply of BID over the UNI and call the repair good, requiring only more micro finishing at that point.

If you’re curious about the BL23 junction leading edge heat damage, it merely cooked some micro and caused some minor surface cracks. I chipped away the cracked micro to clean it up.  I guess lucky for me the BL23 junction required a bit more (aka thicker) micro to blend it in, so the underlying glass was completely unscathed.

I also added some micro onto the aft nose/avionics cover’s aft corner inside BID layups before then adding a ply of BID on top of the added micro.  I then peel plied the layups and left them to cure overnight as well.

I then shot a quick video showing you the proof of concept testing I have been working on with the wire-manipulated micro-switch block for the canopy latch internal lock lever.

And with a crazy, frustrating day under my belt, I called it a night…

This blog post covers the past few days, where I am still primarily focused on all the centerline areas of the bird in order to finalize the micro-finishing for the canopy intersect areas, as well as the nose hatch and nose.

I started off by adding micro to both the front vertical edge of the glare shield (that makes up the seam with the front edge of the canopy skirt) and the front 1/3 of the left longeron where it interfaces with the canopy edge lip.  I then peel plied both of these micro applications.

The application of micro on the front 1/3 of the left longeron completes the addition of micro along this left longeron for the initial application.  Again, this is essentially a micro hard-shelling task since this addition is too small (IMO) to use pour foam.

A single ply BID tape along this edge seems like it should be a fairly quick job, but it took an entire afternoon.  Here are the aft 2 plies of BID (there were different heights needed to cover the side strip of micro), prepregged in plastic and ready for layup.

After a final sanding of the cured micro strip along the left longeron, and then another application of micro into some of the remaining grooves and divots, I laid up the 1-ply BID tape covering the micro vertical edge and overlapping onto the bare fiberglass just beneath it.  I then peel plied the layup.

Here we have the next day… when I then discovered an issue that for the life of me I swore I had nailed down, since it’s really the core purpose for this task: the new layup over the underlying micro was proud of the canopy edge by a good 0.05″ on the front half of the left longeron.

I was dumbfounded.  I swore I had double and triple checked the edges in relationship to each other on both canopy and longeron.  Of course I was not happy.

Nothing to do but fix this cluster ****!  I grabbed the Fein saw and cut off the glass on the front half of the longeron.  I then stripped off ALL the tape protecting the canopy lip, closed and locked it and then sanded the micro to BELOW/INSIDE the surface level of the canopy lip.

Of course the micro had some significant divots and gouges in it from the Fein saw, so another round of micro was required.

Once the micro was cured, and another round of sanding complete, I then redid the front half layup on the left longeron.  Here is the result of that.

And a shot of the now complete first major task in cleaning up the left longeron and matching it up to look nice with the the canopy frame.

In that vein, I also did a thorough sanding of the right longeron, which I honestly have barely touched since I laid up the top skin of the right strake (pic 1).  To keep the micro jobs manageable, I micro’d only the aft half of the right longeron, including along the corner intersection with the strake top micro (pic 2).

I then did a final cross check of the aft outboard corners of the aft nose/avionics cover where the glare shield front corners start.  I need to round these corners to get those tri-corners dialed in where aft nose cover meets sidewall meets canopy frame.

I laid up a ply of BID each side on the inside of the aft nose/avionics cover, then peel plied both sides of the BID before setting it aside to cure overnight.

I then got back to the right longeron and micro’d up the next section going forward.  Here’s how that looked:

And here’s the entire right side strake/longeron/canopy micro situ at the current moment.  I’ll of course be working this more tomorrow going forward.

Pushing onward!

Today I started out by finishing up my micro strip addition just underneath the canopy’s left lip on the forward 1/3 of the canopy.

This micro along the canopy serves a couple of purposes:  First, it essentially serves to widen the longeron under the canopy lip to create a smooth, even flow from canopy lip surface to fuselage/longeron/strake.  This characteristic is more prevalent on the aft half of the canopy to longeron seam.

Second, and possibly more important aesthetics-wise, this micro strip fills in the pronounced original curve of the longeron and creates a straighter line from fuselage/ longeron surface to the canopy lip edge.  This issue is much more noticeable on the forward half of the canopy and increases up to the front corner of the canopy lip.

I’ll note that my finishing “fix” action in regards to this left side canopy lip to longeron interface is essentially a ‘hard-shelling’ operation in that I will sand the micro smooth and blend it in even with the strip of exposed fiberglass just underneath of it.  I will then lay up a ply of BID across this fiberglass-micro junction, covering all of the micro.  This will reinforce the micro and keep it from chipping if a foot, hand, luggage (whatever) dings against it.

I will then finalize the external side of this finishing by adding more micro to connect this new fuselage/longeron-side filler lip to the strake and fuselage side wall.  From there I’ll treat it as a normal micro finishing task as I sand it all to contour and then epoxy wipe [that still leaves the inside edge of this process, which I’ll cover when I get to it].

Now, with the strip of remaining pour foam that I just recently added to the front vertical edge of the glare shield (below), I applied somewhat wet micro to the aft side and top of the foam, before peel plying the foam edge.  Again, this will be somewhat of a ‘hard shelling’ operation as well, in that once I get the foam/micro shaped just right, I will then laying up a single piece of carbon fiber to the glare shield and along this vertical wall of this added foam and micro.  I’ll then deal with the top strip of exposed foam and micro as well (most likely a thin strip of carbon fiber with a flox corner to the previous CF layup above).

My next task involving epoxy was to whip up some wet flox to use in securing the bronze oil sleeve into the canopy latch handle middle block.  Just prior to slathering up the bronze oil sleeve, I hit the outer surface with the Dremel tool to create some flox-gripping grooves.  I then clamped it tightly into place.  Here’s what that looks like:

Now, why did I flox the bronze oil sleeve bearing into the handle assembly middle block?  Well, I noticed just recently that when opening and closing the canopy, and locking and unlocking it as well, I wasn’t getting a full throw of the canopy latch catch hooks fore and aft.

Something was askew… and interestingly I had already taken the pics to show the newly installed canopy latch interior lock when I noted the bronze oil sleeve slipping out of the center block.  Apparently, a week-plus of constant operation on the canopy handle loosened up the press fit between harder bronze oil sleeve and softer aluminum middle block, allowing the sleeve to come loose and exit out of its installed position.  I figured flox (or silicone RTV) was the best way to secure it in place, so I went with that.

Obviously better to have this happen now and find out this issue at this point versus when flying out and about.

I also spent a good chunk of time today assessing and planning out the EXTERNAL canopy handle lock positioning, operation, configuration, etc.  I actually have 2 of these style of locks on hand, one being a bulkier stainless steel lock and the other being a lower profile (chrome?) one.

I assessed the install depth and operation of each lock, and it appeared that the cheaper(?) lower profile lock simply functioned smoother with less fiddly-ness when it came to inserting and rotating the key.  The barrel is also slightly narrower in diameter and shorter, so although it didn’t have the sexier finish between the two locks, it won in all the other aspects.

So here we have the lock position determined and the initial hole drilled into the fuselage sidewall just under the handle.  I have to say I originally planned on placing this lock on the forward (left) edge of the handle, to avoid the 1/4″ Nyla-flo electrical wire conduit running in the sidewall just under the canopy handle (turns out, not the best spot).  Thus, while a royal pain in dealing with my crazy accidental wire cutting issue at the under-longeron GIB Lights switch box… it is now proving quite serendipitous that I had to run those wires under the longeron (vs thru the sidewall conduit) since I will most likely need to cut and remove a decent sized section of the Nyla-flo to create a slot for the lock’s pivoting latch arm.

I’ll continue to work on getting the lock installed into the side wall, with the pivoting latch arm operational, but I am highly considering not machine the interfacing slot into the handle until the exterior paint on the fuselage sidewall is complete (more thought required).

Which leads me to my final task of the evening: sanding the added micro just under the canopy lip on the left side, to ensure a smooth transition from added micro to the fiberglass just underneath of it.

I had planned on doing more work in knocking out the 1-ply BID layup along this added strip of micro, but it was getting quite late and the temp had dropped quite a bit outside,  thus inside the shop as well.  I’ll kick this can ’til tomorrow.

Rock ‘n roll . . .

To be clear, that’s the INTERNAL Lock…

But I’ll first start off by noting that in the push to get the mechanical systems like the canopy latching system or the nose hatch latch configured, the R&D obviously takes up a lot of time and understandably there is a lot of redo’s involved in that.

Case in point is that as I worked on attempting a slight reroute of the nose hatch latch cable —in my attempt to dump the time-busting and involved intermediate bracket— I was 3D printing off my first production version of the canopy latch internal lock handle (in red) vs the previous 3 versions I had made (in black) over the last couple of days (see below), which was further a complete redesign of the first style I created.

That being said, I am happy to report that my nose hatch latch cable reroute worked, allowing me to chuck the intermediate bracket and simply run the cable from handle to latch lever… simplicity in design and function always being best.

As I showed yesterday (while I wasn’t showing all the versions of the internal lock handle) I created a threaded insert to secure the canopy latch internal lock.

Prepping and floxing this threaded insert into the side wall was actually my first task of the day, and here it as installed and cleaned up [Note wires coming from out of sidewall… I had planned on connecting these to a micro-switch mounted inside the internal lock, but there just wasn’t enough room… so the electrical wires are coming out, replaced with safety wire to remotely manipulate the switch —now housed forward of the panel].

And here is the assembled canopy latch internal lock installed.

A few key things to point out:  As I mentioned above, my first design was much larger and focused on latching down on the forward end of the handle.  This caused a clearance problem in both being able to physically grab the handle to open it, AND with the alt-static switch on the panel.  I then simplified the design and made it like a block “C” that simply flips aft over the handle.  My first iteration was, again, too big and I had to bring the size down a couple of notches.  Lastly, the in-wall wire is attached on the bottom arm and pulls the switch (forward of the panel) closed, and small springs manipulate the switch housing and switch open when the internal lock handle is open (forward) as it is here… kinda.

And here it is flipped aft, with the wire pulling the switch closed.  There is a small gap of less than 1/8″ between handle and internal lock, but with the play in the handle before its over-center apex, this play has literally zero opening action at this point.

I then got to some finishing on the canopy to longeron seam.  The main fill needed along the longeron to clean all this up is immediately below the canopy frame edge, near the top of the longeron… essentially flattening out much of the curve at the TOP portion of the longeron (vertically).  Of course more sanding and more micro will be required, since this is just phase 1 on the canopy-to-longeron fills.

Ok… still pressing forward!

More iterations today on trying to get the nose hatch latch and cable pull operational.  I kicked off a 3D print last night that was 3+ hours long… it being significantly longer now that I added a projecting arm that will allow me to secure the latch cable.

However, in the area that would specifically secure the latch cable my print didn’t turn out so great.  I ended up having to drill it out and cracked it a bit, so I super glued it back together (thus the clothesline pin).  I then repurposed the old canopy latch handle push-pull rod as the rod that will have the handle pull cable on an upper attached arm, and the pull cable to the nose hatch latch on a lower attached arm (I also worked designing and modeling those up in CAD as well).

Here we have the nose hatch latch intermediate cable bracket inside the nose for test fit of the cable.

I also took the opportunity to reinstall the front left CAMLOC receptacle of the aft nose/ avionics cover.  I ensured to drill the major hole were I had marked it in situ with the cover installed, but in the end I may have gained a 0.03″ delta in movement, so not a great return on investment with this task… oh well, pressing forward.

With the aft nose/avionics cover in place, I then taped up the glare shield and the front edge of the canopy skirt (pic 1).  I then closed and locked the canopy, whipped up a small bit of pour foam and slathered up the seam between the two (pic 2).

About 20 minutes later I cut off and sanded the excess pour foam.

I then used my flat (around 0.07″ thick) Perm-A-Grit sanding board to create a gap between the front of the canopy skirt and the newly poured foam.  I also cleaned off all the protective tape.

Once the pour foam above was poured into place, I then got busy on the lathe making a threaded insert out of 5/16″ diameter 2024 aluminum rod and tapped 6-32 threads into one end.  This threaded insert will get floxed into the side wall just behind the canopy latch handle to allow me to install a canopy latch lock.

And with that, I called it a night.  More to come tomorrow.

Today was still about a lot of assessments and brainstorming on the canopy fit, finish and integration onto the fuselage… and more modeling in CAD developing both the nose hatch latch intermediate pull cable bracket, and the canopy latch handle safety latch.

Here is the latest version of the nose hatch latch intermediate pull cable bracket, which was almost immediately obsolete once it hit the shop with new upgrades noted immediately and added into the Fusion 360 CAD model, although this version worked great for assessing the cable pivot arms’ action.

I then sanded down and cleaned up the micro added to the left wheel pant, primarily at the middle seam on both inboard and outboard sides, but also some on the nose of the pant as well.  I can already tell it’s looking much better and much more smoothed out.

I opened the canopy to again assess and further refine (as it turned out) the canopy latch handle safety latch…. it needed to be a hair smaller in dimensions than what I had (pics coming soon).

While the canopy was open, I sanded down the front edge of the micro that I added to the turtledeck, vacuumed up the mess and then added another round of micro in the minor gaps along the front edge of the previously added micro.

Before mixing up the micro for the turtledeck above, I had already removed the aft “half” of the right wheel pant before taping up the front half seam edge in preparation for micro.  I noted some glass edges and minor surface irregularities on the top aft of the pant, so along with the center seam I applied all the remaining micro to these areas.

I’ll note that I also remounted the aft nose/avionics cover and marked the new position of the front left outboard CAMLOC receptacle, and will drill and re-rivet the receptacle into place… tomorrow.  It was getting late and I was heading out the door for a late dinner with Jess.

The Quest continues . . .

Ok, I’m tracking a lot of targets right now, mostly all dealing with knocking out the plane’s centerline component tweaks to allow for final micro finishing in prep for paint.

I worked a good bit on the nose hatch hinge inboard vs outboard mounting spacing in tweaking those to attain a better hatch door fit onto the hatch opening’s perimeter flange when closed.  Although I didn’t get it all the way, it was much improved and I have some ideas on a few more tweaks to get it where I want it to be.

That being said, I actually started off with remicroing some spots on the just remicro’d/sanded turtledeck.  About an hour after adding the new micro I ensured the turtledeck’s common edge with the canopy was clear and opened up the canopy.  Not surprisingly, I’ll need to do yet another round of micro on the front edge of the added turtledeck micro, as well as probably a few touch-ups on the aft junction with the top cowling.

I used a full pump of the West epoxy to mix up the micro, so as I expected I had some left over.  I had removed the back “half” of the left wheel pant to tape up the front half middle vertical seam on both the inboard and outboard sides.  I then remounted the back half of the wheel pant with all the hardware… then with the remaining mixed micro from the above turtle deck spot fill, I applied micro to the aft side of the seam (to the back half’s front edge at the seam).  Again, on both sides of the left wheel pant.

I’ll note I was planning on doing the same thing on the right wheel pant, but I couldn’t find my 90° angled screwdriver to remove a very low CAMLOC… after 10 minutes of hard searching I gave up and punted to allow me to move forward.  I’ll get it in the next day or few.

Moreover, one may ask why I’m working the wheel pants now given that a good bunch of my 40 hour flyoff will be sans wheel pants.  Well, I figure with the relatively small size of the pants, they will be my “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to my initial priming and painting ops.  These will be some of the first things I shoot when it comes to primer and paint, to allow optimized dialing in of flow rates, fan sizes, and even color verification.

I then turned my attention to yet another centerline task, which is repositioning the front left CAMLOC receptacle on the aft nose/avionics cover.  Why?  Well, that edge on the left side, just forward of the canard leading edge, needs to be down/in about a 0.08″ to better align cover and forward nose at the seam.

So I drilled out the rivets and removed the CAMLOC receptacle.  Then I filled in one rivet hole and the majority of the center hole with flox (I sanded down and used a carbon fiber disc both as filler and to help ID the original hole position).  I left it to cure overnight and after a final elevation check I will remount the CAMLOC receptacle slightly higher —to pull that cover corner in a hair for better seam elevation alignment with the nose.

After a good half hour of assessment and pondering on next canopy seam finishing steps, and annotating a good number of notes (plus some more CAD stuff and kicking off some 3D prints), I called it a night.