Today was all about moving out on the baffles.  In fact, my goal is to have the baffles COMPLETE by this coming weekend.

One thing I’ve been pondering for quite some time now is how exactly to work the sides of the baffles:  my decision being between leaving the side baffle segments long and extending them aft, or creating little mini-walls on the outboard aft side of the aluminum baffle segments to close off the air coming along the side.

I decided on the latter.

In doing so, I measured and marked where these mini-wall baffles would be, then marked those positions on the upper cowling.  Using contours of the inside upper cowling, I then made some initial baffle mini-wall templates and taped them into place on the left and right sides.

I then put the top cowling in place, used a shop light to check the mini-wall baffles vs the top cowling sides, took the top cowling off, trimmed the mini-wall baffles, then repeated the whole process….  a good number of times.  It’s an iterative process!  

But I finally nailed down the configuration for both the left and right side mini-wall baffle segments, which we have right here:

Before doing any cutting or brake bending on the side baffle segments, I wanted to have the no-kidding position of each lower aft shelf and skirt baffle segment in place first.

I started with the left side and traced the template onto the 6061 aluminum sheet.

It may be a little hard to see here, but the lower aft left baffle segment is ready to be cut out of the 6061 aluminum sheet…

Which I did next.  Here we have the left lower aft shelf and skirt baffle segment cut out and ready for clean up and then some bending on the brake.

I then placed the template for the right lower aft shelf and skirt baffle segment on the 6061 aluminum sheet and traced it out.

Here’s the lower aft right baffle segment ready to be cut out of the 6061 aluminum sheet.

It was getting late so I decided to call it a night and will cut out the right side lower baffle tomorrow.  I also plan on doing a good bit of bending these aluminum segments on the metal brake as well.