I started out this morning back on the Static port lines embedded into each nose sidewall.  The first round of wet micro was nicely cured and holding the tubing well.

To finish the job on the inside and clean things up, I added a dollop of micro in the remaining divot on each sidewall, and then covered that with a small patch of BID.  I then peel plied the respective layups.

Although I only mixed up 8 grams of epoxy, I had a good bit left in my cup.  I didn’t want to waste it so I started in on some of my smaller composite tasks: first up was the aft inboard corner at the trailing edge of the right wing.  It was a little dinged up and didn’t come in or aft far enough, so I added a ply of UNI and then a patch of BID on top of that to fill in & add to the corner.  I then peel plied the layup and added some micro (leftover from above) with some flox for flocro to the underside corner to fill it in.

With still a bit of epoxy left over, I prepped and then laid up a small patch of carbon fiber to a small crack I had made in the thin cowling wall when prying off one of the rib baffle forms last year.  I of course peel plied that layup as well.

I had bought a roll-around tool cart at Harbor Freight while it was on sale, so I went down to pick that up and deliver it to the hangar at the airport.

A couple hours after getting back home I checked the layups, which looked fine, and then pulled the peel ply.   Here’s the left side Static port/line.

And here’s the right side Static port/line.

I then figured out my spacings on-center for each hole at 0.4″, and 3 holes a side per plans… but only drilling the bottom 2 now since I do want to do some research on whether I should have 2 holes per side or the 3 called out in the plans (but only one side).  My thinking taking into account that there’s 3 total holes on one side per plans, is between the following:
⇒ 3 per side on 2 sides (6 holes total input),
⇒ 2 per side on 2 sides (4 total input vs the original plans 3 total holes).
If that makes sense.

Regardless, the left side drilling went fine, and I was able to confirm clear air passage from each hole into the Static tube.

Just to see how visible the holes were without the black Sharpie line, I removed the line with Acetone.

I then applied my hole drilling tape template on the right side, but after drilling the bottom hole I was getting no air through the line.  Clearly I was off.

But how to find the center of the Static line tubing without simply resorting to trial and error, random hole drilling?  I found a cable that was actually magnetic, then grabbed a high-strength magnet.  The cable was too big to get around the inside bends of the 1/4″ tubing, so I had to split it in half.

With the remaining strands, I ran those into the tubing and then was able to find the center of the line with the magnet.  Clearly being off less than 0.1″ here made all the difference in the world, since the bottom errant hole did not allow any air passage, while the one just up and aft of it did.  Clearly a dab of micro will be required to fix this minor oops.

After the right side Static line drilling shenanigans, I got to work on installing the aft lower right engine baffle.  After taping up the edges to ensure I didn’t get black goop in even more unwanted places then I did, I physically installed the right aft baffle with screws and rivets.

I then gooped up the seams along the front edge with the #2 cylinder and the inboard edge with the engine case.

I also ran a bead of goop along the left and right lower baffle seams, before tying them together with a screw, a lower rivet and the starter-to-alternator bracket.

I was using the rivets I got with the VANs Baffle Kit, but I will note that I had misfires on 2 of the 4 rivets and had to resort to some creative, judicious Dremel work to trim the remaining short stub of unsnapped rivet pins staring me in the face (annoying!).

As I did last night, I waited a bit —only 30 minutes this time!— for the goop to set up before removing the protective edge tape.  The result was pretty good.

With all my other sideline activities today, I didn’t get to the underside of the baffles to goop up the seams yet, but plan to do that tomorrow.  Again, hopefully if all goes well I’ll get all the side and front baffle walls installed as well.

Pressing forward!