As I get back onto my build and focus on getting the airplane completed, along with that I also have a goal to get all my shop tools online, maintained and dialed-in as they should be. Obviously having an immediate job that requires their use makes it easier to focus on a given tool.
And thus it is with this week’s “power tool of the week,” to focus on: my standing drill press. I started this endeavor a couple nights ago as I scrounged around a couple of hours off and on to find the parts box.
The next day I spent well over 2 hours cleaning and removing a good bit of the rust off the drill press, especially the chuck which was a solid chunk of rust after going through the hurricane back in 2019. By the time I got the drill press to my shop (from my old hangar) back then, it had all the handles, belts, etc. in one box, and the chuck in a bag of solvent to remove the rust (in the garage). I then never assembled it or used it, and am just getting to it now.
After putting a nice scratch on the lower right engine baffle as I was drilling a relief hole, I was assessing my best options to remove the unsightly scratch. It turns out that as I was on the COBA forums earlier reviewing posts on engine baffles and exhaust systems (aka “What would Klaus & Marc Z. do?”), someone posted a shot of their firewall that they had just finished Engine Turning (or “jeweling”). This was pre-scratch so I simply filed it away in my mind as a point of interest.
Someone else on that forum thread placed a link to a pic of the Spirit of St. Louis, which is a great example of engine turning on the cowls.
Post-scratch: To be clear, I like the nice smooth look of aluminum baffles around the engine. But I was going to have to do something to remove the scratch, and clearly that baffle segment wasn’t going to look the same after the scratch was removed… and would very well likely need the entire baffle buffed out to blend the scratch in. After spending a good couple of days blending the paint in on Guy Williams’ Long-EZ as I repaired its winglet, blending anything at this point was not something I wanted to engage in. Thus, Engine Turning became my answer to resolve the scratch issue.
After a good round of research on how folks were doing it, I then tried my hand at Engine Turning on a scrap piece of aluminum…. looking pretty spiffy to me!
I then decided to Engine Turn all the baffle surfaces that face reward on the engine and that would be somewhat visible when looking into the cowled bird. I started my no-kidding Engine Turning adventures on the front left baffle segment and got this far before calling it a night.
I finished the first big top forward baffles today… here we have 2 of the 3 front baffle segments Engine Turned.
Jess was sweet and cooked me dinner over at her place tonight, but before I left to go over there I was able to finish the last segment of the front engine baffles. Here are all 3 front baffle segments Engine Turned.
Tomorrow I plan on getting the 2 aft lower baffle segments Engine Turned.