If you find him, or know of one, can you tell him that I’m looking for him?!  Haha

I started off today by pulling the left wing splash off the wing, cleaning it up and trimming it around the edges.

I then did the same thing on the right wing leading edge light splash.

I deferred working any more on the splashes until later in evening, and got to work doing the final sanding on the left strake leading edge RAM air intake.  I sanded the epoxy-wiped internal expansion tube first with 100 grit, then 120 and finally wet sanded it with 150 grit.  That whole process took well over 30 minutes.

Then I spent about another 30 minutes using the orbital sander to knock down the added micro fill on both strakes’ lower leading edges.  My goal was to get them to a state where I could re-epoxy wipe them and be done with them, but I think the contouring of these lower leading edges is a bit more nuanced than I want to deal with upside down. In short, I think there is a fuselage flip coming up in the near future (for a number of different reasons).

I then re-drilled the top cowling’s right shoulder CAMLOC hole and remounted the top cowl.  I am very happy to report that my oil-canning issue on this right shoulder has been eliminated.  There is no depression of the cowl lip as I install the CAMLOC, and it is rock solid.  However, since the cowl lip is much higher now than when I put micro on the right shoulder, I will need to add micro to match the strake shoulder to cowling edge for final contour finishing.

I had also sanded down the edge of the micro-fill on the strake side of the top cowl-strake intersection seam, but there is still just a tad too much material in the way for the top cowl right corner to sit flat against the flange.  Thus, one more cowl OFF will be required before I get a “final” sand on the right side horizontal transition fill of the top cowl.

With the top cowl back on the bird, I then used my sanding blocks to knock down even more of the micro fill on the top center spline and aft lip areas.  With 80 grit on the orbital sander I also hit the open areas of the carbon fiber skin to rough that up for some upcoming epoxy wipes.

I took 45 minutes to do yet another round of sweeping and vacuuming the shop floor around the bird, slowly trying to clean up all the micro dust as most of my micro fill jobs are on a much smaller scale now and the cleanup more manageable… although the entire shop is still covered in a fine layer of micro dust.  I try to knock out a significant cleanup round once a day in the shop…. bit by bit.

Back in the house I configured the splashes for some plexiglass lens-making by finding an old white T-shirt, ironing it to remove any wrinkles, cutting out a piece for each splash and taping the cotton material into place (see 2nd-to-last pic below).

With 3 of my previous lenses that I made and discussed in a post (there were 4, one is hiding somewhere in that shop) I did a test to see if I could heat them up, flatten them back into essentially raw plexiglass stock again and start over.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that was indeed the case and not overly difficult to do… one just has to watch the heat exposure and time, as is always the case during any shaping of plexiglass.

I tried out my new “retread” process on the 2 throw-away scrap lenses first, and those worked fairly well with some minor tweaks to the process.  Lens #3 was a viable good candidate I had made months ago, and fortunately I was able to flatten it, heat it up to temp (300° F) and form it in the left wing splash.  I then test fit on the left wing leading edge (below).  I then used a brand new piece of 8″ x 8″ plexiglass and made a pretty decent lens for the right side, which is sitting on the left wing top below…

… and which I then test fit on the right wing leading edge light location.  I taped the lenses in place (in case the squirrels decided to do something even crazier) and closed up the shop for the night, as it was getting late in the evening.

Back in the house I used fresh new plexiglass stock for another left and right side leading edge light lens, respectively.  I started with the left side, where the heating and timing were about perfect.  It went in the splash nicely and I formed it around to ensure it cooled pressed as flush into the splash as possible.

However, as it started to cool I could feel 2 very minor bumps in the center leading edge curve.  Once cooled, sure enough when I pulled it from the splash I had a couple ripples, or bumps, in the center leading edge.  Not huge, but definitely noticeable if this were mounted on the bird.  So, my new plexiglass lens immediately became a “retread” as I heated it back up (in my kitchen oven, due to its height) and then remolded it in the splash once to temp.  Thankfully round 2 went fine and I got a good left lens out of it.  Even more thankfully is that I didn’t have any issues with forming another right side lens in the right splash.

Here we have another right side lens (#2) pulled from its splash after it cooled.

Tomorrow I’ll finalize the shape and angle of the leading edge light opening on the wings, make sure they match and are symmetrical, and then trace that opening onto all the lenses I’ve made.  I’ll then cut the lenses to shape, clean up the edges and use the best lens from each side as the template for the final markup on the wing leading edge to then cut out the light pocket.

Once my leading edge light lenses look squared away, and the light pockets cut out, I’ll then pull the cotton material out of the splashes and tape them up to use as a mold for a 3-ply carbon fiber layup for the leading edge light mounting flanges.  Clearly one for each side.

Get ‘er done!