This blog post covers the past few days.
Most of Friday was spent helping Guy retweak his right main gear, which we needed to angle it even further inboard than we had before. This job took a good half the day.
Related to this gear bending redo, which I learned much on, was a notable side event where I did my first taxi in a Long-EZ after all these years of building one! Guy wanted me to check his brakes while he viewed the wheel-to-gear angle while it was in motion. So I did a little bit of taxiing about. Even with a not-so-great right brake it was a good experience!
Since my last post I’ve been working the top of the left winglet to finalize that by sanding the added micro fill, then dry sanding with 150 grit, then wet sanding with the same. Then rinse and repeat on a couple of low spots. Same thing with the perimeters around the wing leading edge lights: a couple of cycles of sanding, fills, and more sanding.
Thus the reason I didn’t post any pics of those same ‘ol tasks.
After removing the top cowling, a new task I knocked out was drilling some 1/16″ thick G10 phenolic to use as “washers” that will be embedded in the top cowl front corner micro fills, to help prevent the CAMLOCs from sinking into the micro over time as I have discovered they do on the bottom cowling.
I didn’t drill out the middle hole to the same diameter as the top cowl CAMLOC holes yet, since I didn’t want to have to get the alignment perfect while floxing them into pace. I’ll drill the center holes out afterwards.
After the dry run, I then prepped the “washers” and floxed them into place, securing them with clamps.
I have another G10 “washer” like these to add to the left front corner of the top cowling, and then I’ll probably add 2-3 plies around the top center CAMLOC hole since it only needs a 0.02-0.03″ of fill to match the surface level of the micro finish.
My goal this coming week is to be completed with finishing the top & bottom cowlings, and have them prepped for primer/paint. Also the turtle deck micro’d up and finished as well. Finally, I plan on removing the engine, giving it a good cleaning and then bagging it up until after I get the bird painted.