First thing this morning I razor trimmed the cured 2-ply BID layup that covers 3 sides of the bare foam in the taxi light port in underside of the nose.  After trimming the glass edges, I then quickly sanded the corners with some 32 grit sandpaper.

Here’s a shot from below.  And yes, with the MGS epoxy it makes it hard to tell there’s ANY fiberglass on the foam surface, let alone 2 plies.

I then assembled some of the nose pieces that I would be working on (clockwise from the top): tool box lid, battery tray, and forward NG30 cover.  This pic was taken after I sanded the tool box lid and forward NG30 cover with 32 grit sandpaper.  In addition, I had done an initial rough trim on the battery box flange, and right after this pic was taken I trimmed the sides of the battery box flange….

… as you can see here.  Again, this flange will slip into the inside of the battery compartment NG30 extension and along with the upcoming right-side flange, will keep the battery secure from sliding left or right.

I then trimmed the depth of the flange down to 1/2″.

Since I got a bit overzealous with the flox when I installed the battery strap securing cross tube, I needed to make a decent sized half-moon shaped notch in the flange to clear the flox around the batter strap cross tube.

After looking at the setup further and playing around with different configurations, I realized that I could use the battery tray as my securing point for the taxi light mini-actuator.  The actuator fits under the battery tray with no issues and with enough room to move slightly up and down.  Since the battery, and thus the tray, is offset to the left a bit in the battery compartment —to provide maneuvering space on the right side for the big battery cables in the battery compartment— I could then mount the taxi light mini-actuator to the right in the channel below the battery box and still have plenty of clearance for the battery securing strap.

To implement my plan, I wanted something a bit stronger than just a bunch of plies of BID, so I cut out a piece of 1/16″ G10 Garolite to use as the base of my right-side battery tray flange + taxi light mini-actuator mount.  I trimmed the G10 to fit and then set it in place under where the battery tray will sit.  I added just a hair more space on the outboard side of the G10 to allow me to layup 1 ply of BID on that side, unlike the bare outboard side of the left battery tray flange.

I then whipped up a small amount of 5-min glue and glued the G10 flange to the right underside of the battery tray.

This is a bit later, after I glassed the inboard side of the G10 to the battery tray using 3 plies of BID.  The layup was still just a bit flexible, so I put the battery tray back into the nose and pressed the curing right flange up against the inboard side of the channel to ensure the flange cured as closely and tightly to the channel wall as possible.

I then spent about half an hour mocking up the location and configuration of the nose tool box Dzus latch.  I started with the bottom latch assembly, got it situated and then drilled the rivet holes.  With the bottom latch assembly set in place, I then determined the “exact” location of the top latch assembly, got it set up and drilled the holes for it as well.

With the latch parts ready to be riveted into place, I then pulled them off and started prepping the tool box parts for eventual paint.  I want to get the surface painted before I mount the Dzus latch onto the tool box.  Now, if I can just finalize a color choice!

With my battery tray flange curing, here’s all the parts I would be working with: the front & aft NG30 covers, and the tool box lid & body.  The front NG30 cover and tool box lid will get 3 epoxy wipes, with 2 hours in between the coats.  The aft NG30 cover and the tool box body will both get slathered up with micro for finishing.

This is epoxy wipe #2 (I think . . .) on the forward NG30 cover and the tool box lid.

And here is the aft NG30 cover and the tool box both slathered up with micro.  I did the tool box first, and you can see that the micro I applied to it was a bit wetter than it should have been, although it still sanded out fine (as you can see below).

Below represents a good hour’s worth of solid sanding between the NG30 cover and the tool box body.

Tomorrow I plan on laying up 1 ply of BID on the outboard side of the right battery tray flange and then epoxy wiping both the aft NG30 cover and tool box body (above).  Either later tomorrow or the day after I’ll start prepping the surface of all these components for high build primer and then paint.

Happy Easter everyone!

Today before I headed out for some Easter festivities I did a couple of quick layups.  The first layup was 2 plies of BID on the exposed foam of the taxi light opening in the nose.

I started by sanding & shaping the opening glass & foam. I then created the wedge-shaped channels along the edges of the respective internal and external glass openings since I wouldn’t be overlapping the glass onto either the internal or external glass surfaces.

In the pic below you can see the top wedge channel cut.

And here is both channels cut.

I then whipped up some micro and applied it the foam.  For the wedge-shaped channels I  added a bit of flox to the micro for flocro corner junctions with the glass.

I then pre-pregged the 2 plies of BID and then laid it up in the taxi light opening.

Here’s another couple of shots from left & right angles of the laid up 2-plies of BID.

Here’s a final shot of the laid up 2-plies of BID in the taxi light opening.

Lastly, I wanted a way to make my battery tray removable, but still have it meet the purpose for which I glassed it: to keep the battery from sliding left or right under its tie-down strap.  After pondering it a bit, I decided to glass in a flange that hangs down on each side, just inside the NG30 plate.  That way when the battery tries to slide one way or the other, locked in the tray, the battery tray itself is kept from sliding by these flanges pinning the tray in place.

I decided to glass in just one of these hang down flanges to better allow me to figure out where the second one goes… you know, control my variables and all that.  I used 2 “good” pieces of glass and a bunch of scraps to make up about 5 plies of BID.  Since the battery is a bit heavy, and these flanges won’t be that deep, I decided that 5 plies will give me good strength and still stay very light due to the actual flange sizes.

So, although not much, I did get a couple of significant tasks knocked out today.  Again, I’ll continue to work on instrument-panel-forward components in prep for closing in & glassing the nose top.

Today I cracked the case open on the NG30 channel, something that I haven’t done since I mounted the NG30 cover well over a year ago.  I unscrewed the 6 screws on the NG30 cover and worked it a bit back and forth before it came right off.

I spent a good 15 minutes getting down into the bowels of the NG30 channel to clean it out.  Many additions and a couple pieces of hardware after a couple of years definitely called for a good cleaning.  To vacuum out the aft parts of the NG30 channel I used a 3/8″ 4130 steel tube as an impromptu shop vac extension to get access.

A long overdue task regarding the NG30 that I needed to complete was the filling in of the slight gap between the bottom edge of the NG30 cover sides and the actual top edge of the NG30s.  The gap on the left side was slightly more pronounced than the right, but I wanted to get ALL the gaps filled in.

I placed clear packing tape on the top edge of each NG30 side that mated to the bottom edge of the NG30 cover in prep for micro to fill in the gap.

I then whipped up some micro –using West Epoxy– and put a thick bead of it all around the bottom side edges of the NG30 cover . . . technically the aft NG30 cover since there are 2 NG30 covers: aft and forward.

As the micro “greened” and got rubbery, I cut the majority of the packing tape away with a razor knife and cleaned up the sides a bit.

After a number of hours, after the micro was about 90% cured, I pulled off the aft NG30 cover.  You can see the pic to the left below the way it looked immediately after I removed it.  I then spent about 10 minutes trimming away the excess micro.  I got the micro at a really good point since it was cured, but still just a bit flexible enough that it cut fairly easily with a razor knife.

After cleaning up the micro edges on the aft NG30 cover, I put the cover back in place to check the interface between the cover and the NG30 sides.  I’m very pleased with how it turned out.  Now with the gaps filled, I can give the NG30 cover a quick sanding and finish it to paint.

The remaining micro that I didn’t use for filling the gaps on the aft NG30 cover, I used to cover the forward NG30 cover for finishing.  I taped up the felt mounting pad for the Matco parking brake, then slathered on the micro.

Quite a number of hours later I spent a good 20 minutes sanding down the micro on the forward NG30 cover.  The micro was still in its sweet spot “green” stage allowing me to cheese grate it, meaning it sanded way easier than if fully cured and comes off in clumps versus micro dust.

Also, here’s a shot of the tool box lid that I micro’d up with some leftover MGS epoxy that I had earlier in the day.  I also cheese grated the lid as well, although I didn’t get an after shot of it . . . yet.

I’ll continue to work instrument panel forward electrical, mechanical and fiberglass component installations until I’m ready to start a concurrent build on both the wheel pants and the top nose construction.

Before I get to the AEM box wiring, I’m going to cover a couple of other items first.

Today I identified another location to mount an Adel clamp hardpoint for my big battery power cables coming out of the nose.  I marked and then drilled the hole for the hardpoint.

Here’s the same shot, but I added the threaded insert in the pic.

I whipped up some flox and mounted the threaded insert in the hole.  I then clamped a board onto the threaded insert to keep it in place.

I grouped the pics in this post by topic, not chronologically, so I’m jumping ahead about 8 hours here to show the nearly completely cured flox.  I cleaned up the flox that oozed out around the taped up washer.

A couple of hours later I removed the bolt and popped off the washer.  I cleaned up the flox, finishing up the install of this hardpoint.

Here’s my progress so far on getting the big battery power cables routed out of the nose battery compartment –with clearance for my right rudder pedal– to my immediate goal: to the instrument panel.

Moving on.  I laid up the final carbon fiber ply on the right side of the taxi light cover.  It took some tricky machinations to get it lined up at the CF intersections, but it all seemed to work out.  To be clear, I did use a “trash” piece of CF here for this final ply.

I checked it a bit later while the epoxy was still just a bit tacky, so I was able to mash down the edges/intersections CF.

After the carbon fiber layup cured, I did a knife trim and quick cleanup.

Here’s a shot of the left side.  I need to still sand it down and hit it with one more application of epoxy.  It’s still not going to win any beauty contests, but it looks a ton better than it did obviously when I first glassed it!

I then started building the wiring harness for the AEM box.  My first task was to configure the wiring connector that came with the laser altimeter.  There are a lot of extra wires that come on this connector harness, so I cut those to a usable length in case I need them later, then wrapped them up and heat shrunk wrapped it to the cable harness.  I then terminated the 3 wires I’m using with mini-Molex sockets and mounted them into the mini-Molex connector.

I then spent a couple of hours building the wiring harness for the AEM box.

I measured out the required wiring lengths for most of the wires, and estimated the lengths on a few of the wire runs to the panel.  I performed a continuity check on each wire as I terminated the D-Sub socket on it.

Here’s a closeup shot of the AEM box D-Sub 15-pin connector with all the terminated wires installed.

Tomorrow I’ll install the last big battery power cable Adel clamp hardpoint for my immediate goal of getting these cables’ routing locked down from the nose to the panel. I’ll also start working the pivot arm & bracket for the taxi light to provide an attach point for the taxi light deployment/retraction actuator.

Today I finished installing the Nose Gear AEM box to the forward face of F22.  First, I cleaned up the 5-min glue that oozed out & dried around each Clickbond.  I also sanded down the area around the Clickbonds for a layup of 2 plies of BID around each set.

Apparently Marco had told me that I needed to prep the lid-mounting holes in the AEM box –which of course I promptly forgot– so the there was a bit of separation between the box layers (slight splitting) at each corner from me installing screws into the screw posts. Thus, when I laid up my 2 plies of BID around each set of Clickbonds, I then mounted the box, applied wet epoxy to each corner, and then clamped the box on each side to compress the corners to remove the minor splitting.

Here’s another shot of the AEM box with the clamps applied.

When I laid up the 2 plies of BID over the Clickbonds, I of course peel plied the glass for a smooth transition.  Also, I laid up the BID earlier in the day, so by late night the layups were cured and ready to be cleaned up.  The pic below is from late evening.

In addition, before I laid up the plies of BID over the Clickbonds, I determined the location of my next big power cable Adel clamp hardpoint.  I marked the location with a dot as you can see below, and then I drilled out the hardpoint hole in the sidewall.

I really didn’t get any other in-between pics, so with the same cure rate as the BID for the AEM box’s Clickbonds, by the end of the evening the big power cable Adel clamp hardpoint flox was cured and the threaded insert set in place.

Also, in addition to the AEM box Clickbonds and big power wires’ Adel clamp hardpoint, I also laid up a ply of Carbon Fiber over the left side and aft/bottom side of the taxi light cover.  I did get about half of the top as well, so when I do the last Carbon Fiber ply layup, I’ll work to get a nice overlap on the top and a good seam between the aft/bottom side and the right side.  One point of note is that the pic below is of the taxi light cover layup after I did a rough cleanup.  I need to do a good cleanup of the edges, align sides, etc. before I layup the final ply of Carbon Fiber.

I’ll continue to work these subsequent layups, but also within the next day or so I plan on wiring up the nose gear AEM box.