Hey Guys,

As the firewall re-populating continues I’m migrating to wiring up the engine components inside the GIB headrest and finishing up plumbing/wiring inside the hellhole. 

With the constant rain and wind, due to the Nor’easter currently hitting us, I have the wings inside the shop.  This doesn’t allow for any space right now to do any welding on the rollbar before final paint on that before it, and in turn the canopy, get installed.

As for painting, I am currently working on the black accent stripes on the winglets, with the white wing paint next up on the docket.  Also I’ll finalize the surface finish and get some paint on the lower cowling as well.

“Perfect is the enemy of good enough” is still my thinking regarding paint. 

In between the paint jobs, I will continue to work on getting components installed and wiring knocked out inside the bird.

I spent most of the day today prepping and working on finalizing the application of hi-temp RTV to the edges of the CS spar “outriggers” that are exposed to engine compartment heat . . .

And also around the adjacent edges of the titanium firewall and the lower firewall corners.

Of course I had to buy more hi-temp RTV, and since the gray was cheaper, nicer looking (IMO) and good up to 1400° F, I went with that.

Also, note on the upper firewall above that I have installed the ElectroAir coil pack, as well as terminated and installed the left side P9 power CPC connector.

Below we have the right side P10 data CPC connector terminated and installed as well.

Finally, after installing the P9 and P10 connectors, I then applied sound-deadening foam on the aft wall of the headrest/forward side of the firewall.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I plan on shooting the black accent stripes on the winglets.

Pressing forward!

Today was all about getting the winglets taped up for the black accent stripes that will border the blue accents on the leading edge and top of each winglet.

But before that, here are some shots of the winglets’ blue accent paint with the tape removed.

First the left side.

And the outboard side of the right winglet.

An inboard angled shot of the right winglet.  Again, accept for one run on the left winglet blue accent, these second rounds of paint came out good.

As you can see, to prep for the black accent stripes, the rudders had to be mounted back into place.  Here is the initial border taping of what will be the black accent stripe on the left winglet.

I wanted the accent stripe fairly thick as to be bold and stand out on the winglets.  I know some will give me grief regarding a bold black stripe on a flying surface, but remember that these winglets are vertical and will experience exponentially less heat because of that than if they were on a horizontal surface.

And here we have the black accent stripe and upper blue accent paint all taped up for painting.  After a bit of additional plastic taped in place to protect the remaining winglet and outboard wing, these will be ready to shoot once the weather is agreeable.

In the meantime I will continue working on finishing up the firewall install and getting firewall components mounted.

Today I got the ruined paint on both winglets sanded down and prepped for another round of paint.

Obviously I kept a constant eye on the weather forecast.

Here’s the left winglet in blue paint, and besides one run, both winglets look good.

My evening task was to get the slot for the RAM air scoop’s lever arm created in the firewall.

To do that I cut off the bottom portion of one of the paper firewall templates and attached it to the firewall.

With everything lined up as good I could get it, I then used the paper template slot holes to drill holes through the titanium firewall.

I the removed the paper template, taped up around the holes and used my Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to create the RAM air can lever slot.

Voila… task complete.

Another task I completed tonight was wet sanding the carbon fiber glare shield on the aft nose/avionics cover before epoxy wiping it with 2 coats of West epoxy.

Still pushing forward . . .

Once again, this post covers the past few days.

First up, a slightly fuzzy pic of the firewall with all the clamps and wedges removed.  Still some fine cleanup work to do, as well as drilling and cutting the slot for the RAM air can’s open/close lever arm.

I then got to work on the winglets to get them prepped for the blue paint swoosh along the leading edge and top of each winglet.  After a final wet sand on each winglet, I then worked the final swoosh design and taped it up.

Both the design and getting all the left and right winglets’ outboard and inboard blue accent swooshes as symmetrical as possible took about 3 hours total.  Note the blue sky with a few clouds in the pic, and no rain forecasted until mid-evening.

Here’s the inboard winglets with the taped up accents.

I had an issue with the gun on my planned second and final coat, apparently the paint gummed up a little in the gun during my wait period between first and second coat.  The second coat shot out dry, and although I put on a good amount, it wasn’t wet at all.  I then had to mix up more paint for a 3rd coat.

My flash time is 30 minutes between coats on the color coats, and this little hitch cost me another 30 minutes before shooting the 3rd and final coat, which after I flushed the gun with lacquer thinner (another slight delay) came out nice and wet.  When I finished shooting the blue paint at a minute before 5 pm, I noticed some darker clouds rolling in, but nothing overly threatening.  I wanted to let the paint cure 20 minutes to get it to “dust dry” before moving one wing into the shop and the other under the carport —both areas prone to dust.

I went into the house to doublecheck the weather on the computer, which said rain was coming at 6pm.  And then went back outside at 5:15pm to get the wings under cover, but it was too late.  The sky had opened up and for over 20 minutes rain poured down.  In hope that the paint may have flashed enough to be ok, I still moved the wings under cover.  But unfortunately it didn’t help.

This is the following day, where as you can see, the rain ruined the paint surface.

Fairly disgusted with faulty weather intel, and apparently bad luck (it only rained for about 30 minutes total… just long enough at the exact time to ruin a good paint job), so I took the next day off from painting (and the ensuing required sanding down all that blue paint) and focused on some other issues… one being a call to EnerSys to discuss both my 12 year old PC680 battery (still acting brand new) and how to recover the PowerSafe SBS J16 battery (much more CCAs) that I bought off Marco a few years back.

EnerSys was very helpful and sent me instructions on how to recover the PowerSafe battery, which I did with the help of the Odyssey PC680.

Tomorrow I’ll get back onto the winglets to sand off the crap paint and reshoot it… WEATHER PERMITTING!

This post covers the last few days…

Starting off, I used the largest pieces of leftover Thermo-Tec heat shield to fill in the center depression on the firewall.

I then traced out the firewall onto my stock of Fiberfrax to create the layer that will cover the entire wood firewall structure, plus an oval to cover the Thermo-Tec in the center depression of the firewall.

I filled any gaps between the Thermo-Tec pieces with red hi-temp RTV before applying it across the entire face of the Thermo-Tec (pic 1).  I then set the Fiberfrax in place and let it cure overnight.

The following day I noted that I still had a significant depression even with the Thermo-Tec and Fiberfrax layers in place, so with a couple remaining large scraps of Fiberfrax, I went ahead and added a final filler layer for this depression… still not completely filling the depression, but good enough to provide an adequate transition.

I had a good bit of errands to run, life administrivia, etc. to knock out, as well as doing some research on other Long-EZ related components like my main battery configuration, brake pedal installation, etc.

Thus the only thing else I got done on the firewall was later in the evening, after the new Fiberfrax was securely in place, I test fitted the new titanium firewall cover.  I’ll admit I missed one hole: the AN3 bolt for the ‘Forrest-of-tabs’ grounding bus inside the hellhole… so I cut that out of the firewall Fiberfrax layer and made a note to buy a 3/16″ cobalt drill bit to make the hole in the firewall the following day….

Which I did.  With ALL the holes accounted for (and created), I then quickly slathered up the original wood/glass firewall with red hi-temp RTV, attached the Fiberfrax layer before then adding more red RTV and setting the titanium firewall in place (which took some fairly creative contortions to get into place).

I then spent nearly 2 hours first getting the titanium firewall set as securely in place as possible with bolts, screws, AN passthrough fittings, throttle/mixture cable securing hardware, etc. before then clamping a piece of wood across the lower engine mount extrusions and wedging the firewall into the underlying fiberfrax (I had meant to get a pic of the Fiberfrax in place, but I was scrambling to get everything mounted before the red RTV cured).

Next came almost an hour of simply cleaning up all the red RTV that was … well, everywhere.  It made a huge mess all over and took a good bit to clean it up.

And with that, another milestone has been met: the titanium firewall and underlying Fiberfrax layer is installed!

Today is a big milestone in this airplane build.

After inputting the few minor tweaks on template #7 I was ready to plasma cut the Titanium firewall overlay out of the 0.02″ thick Titanium sheet I have.

First, I grabbed a collective shot of all the firewall overlay templates that led up to the final configuration for plasma cutting.

Here I’ve got the laptop and plasma cutting table ready for cutting, with the Titanium sheet secured in position.

And here is the Titanium firewall after I plasma cut it.  Not as super clean on the holes as aluminum, but the dross is not much and very acceptable… although minor edge cleaning will be required.

Here’s a quick video I grabbed both during and after I plasma cut the Titanium firewall.  Enjoy!

Pressing forward!