My goal today was to no-kidding finalize the integration of the aft canopy into the longeron, shoulder corner and D-deck.  I have some very strange contours going on here, and thought I had it a couple of days ago, but just above the corner canopy curve on each side I had about a 2.5″ strip where the canopy lip was much prouder (by about 0.1″) than the D-deck surface… so I added micro to those areas.

Today I started by actually removing the top cowling, sanding the aft perimeter edge/lip of the D-deck, shoulders and strake, as well as cleaned up the front CAMLOC/screw flange of the top cowling.  I then remounted the top cowling with all its hardware for this final sanding, which I spent nearly 2 hours doing.

All looked good except a low spot on the D-deck in comparison to the top cowl front lip, at about the left 10 O’ clock position, and mirrored at the 2 O’ clock position on the right.  I guess I should feel good that my refills are proving to be symmetrical on both the left and right sides (some building humor there!).

I did have one more problem area and that was the top center of the top cowling, about an inch to either side… this edge is low compare to the D-deck, and the D-deck profile looks good to me.  So I added a bit more micro at this spot on the top cowl and will blend it in to match the D-deck.

When I added micro to the D-deck vs canopy lip low spots yesterday, I also hit a couple of divots on the added front edge lip of the aft nose/avionics cover.  Well, I sanded that down as well today, and I think I’m looking pretty good on this new, added front lip.  This is in an effort to get the front nose micro’d up . . .

Speaking of micro finishing the front nose: a big issue is the recent addition of the latch internal spring plunger —that is critical for the nose hatch latch to operate as designed— is pushing up on the inside of the nose hatch door.  My original 1/32″ rubber seal is definitely not the right thickness for the job (if it ever was… I never did a final test on it).  A few days ago I ordered some 2″ wide 1/8″ foam sealant (note roll top left corner of pic), which just arrived, and I cut off 4 squares to do an initial check on the nose door sealing.

I have to say it looks very promising.  I’ll add some more squares including centerline front and aft tomorrow to assess further.  If this seal is the one, I should be slathering up the nose within the next few days and finalizing the micro finish on that area.

My final task of the evening, which also took a decent little bit of time, was sanding down all the filled divots and larger pin holes on the top surfaces of the elevators.  I then finished the job with a very thin epoxy wipe on each elevator top.

Tomorrow I’ll wet sand the top surfaces, and then epoxy wipe the bottom surface of each elevator.

A big note on this airplane build: Since it’s the middle of April, and Jess and are getting married the end of May, from here on out until the wedding I’ll be limiting myself to about 3 hours a day on the build. Clearly I think I’ll continue to make significant progress as well, but I need to get a bunch done on the house as I have wedding visitors coming in during the last week of May.

Still, pressing forward.