Yesterday I made a command decision to add 2 more attach points to the aft nose/avionics cover. Yes, it may seem like this cover is an endless endeavor, but after a fair amount of consideration, pondering, and even some soul-searching (grin) I just felt that for my own peace of mind —especially if I’m going to carry passengers— I wanted a way to positively pin down those fairings to the sidewall other than CAMLOCs. This way should a CAMLOC fail or separate from the aircraft, I know that the likelihood of the wind wreaking havoc on the fairing and jamming it into elevator is vastly minimized.
Although in my haste (modus operandi apparently) I failed to get a shot of the 1/16″ G10 phenolic tabs I cut, floxed and glassed with 2 plies of BID on the bottom forward side of the fairing.
Today I started out by trimming up the 2 ply BID layup on the external side of these new screw tabs. I then marked the locations to drill for the screws.
I then drilled the screw holes on each side and test fitted a CS #10 screw.
I glassed the interior side of these added screw tabs with 2 plies of BID overlapping onto the interior wall of the aft nose/avionics cover. In hindsight I think 1 ply would have provided enough strength, because I ended up needing to sand these layups fairly aggressively, along with the nose side of the equation, to get the cover to fit back into place correctly.
After a fair bit of sanding, I finished the cleanup and drilling of the added fairing screw tabs.
Later in the evening my final task was making up 2x K1000-3 phenolic nutplate assemblies for the screws that will secure the newly created elevator fairing screw tabs to the fuselage sidewall.
I did get a bit done on the right half moon today (no pics), but tomorrow I do plan on getting back to work full bore on it to allow me to get the fuselage flipped over.