As par usual, after our wonderful New Year’s trip to Asheville, NC it’s taking me a bit to get back into the swing of things on the build.
One reason, again, is the rather chilly weather we’re having here. I missed getting to the primary place I go to for Kerosene, so that delayed me a whole day since my shop is just too cold to do anything other than very focalized tasks involving epoxy, obviously using heat lamps to keep the generalized area warm enough to cure. Moreover, my normal shop heating just can’t do much without those torpedo heaters fired up since the insulation on my shop’s ceiling is now no longer (due to squirrels).
I did get the threaded inserts on the top of the left winglet cleaned up, and tested them with a couple of screws. The next step on these will be to fill them with saran wrap to protect the threads as I add a minor bit of micro fill around them, and then re-epoxy wipe the winglet top with a few coats.
I also spent a good hour carefully removing all the wires I ran for the wing leading edge lights operational test (and video), and getting all the wiring put back away and labeled for the wire I actually cut for the lights.
I then removed the lights from the brackets, and removed the brackets from the wing leading edge light pockets. Instead of painting the brackets this time around, I simply covered them with carbon fiber vinyl and cut out the the screw holes for access.
Instead of fancy hex-drive button head screws to secure the lights to the brackets, I had some stainless steel Phillips-head screws that I decided to paint black. I did a round of 4 of these screws before Jess and I left for Ashville, but the other 4 were installed on the right wing light. I then swapped the screws and painted the next 4 as I installed the now black headed screws to secure the right leading edge light to its bracket. Here’s a couple of shots of that.
My plan is to keep the heaters fired up a good bit during this cold spell and get back to work to knock out the numerous items I have on my list to get all the micro finishing complete and this bird ready for paint.
Pressing forward… again!