Chapter 4 complete

I did manage to finish the firewall on May 29th, just haven't had time to post anything. Or, rather, haven't taken the time to post anything. Currently working on Ch.5 fuselage sides. Will post more later.

Firewall

I'm almost done with the last bulkhead of chapter 4! I've finished the firewall except for the last layer of bid on the fwd side, and cutting the temp firewall (which might wait until I'm in ch.6).

I cut the firewall out of 1/4" birch on Monday night, and cut and installed the 1x1x1/4" alum. inserts for the engine attach points on Tuesday night/Wed. early a.m. How early? Ask Julia - the power tool section of the project (cutting the alum., cutting the holes for the alum.) didn't wake her ~ forgetting to close the garage door and lightly tapping the hard points into the birch however, did. Sorry! To ensure a good bond with the birch, I sanded the aluminum with 60 grit sandpaper and epoxy to prevent any oxidation before installation and fiber glassing.

Here's the 4 piece section of the firewall with alum inserts installed:

And a detail of the alum. inserts:

For the 14 blind screws, I drilled the holes after glassing one side and cut a countersink:

I did diverge slightly from the plans after reading about problems of having the screws turn later on. After looking at either cutting a cross shape into the screw head or installing piano type wire inlaid into the screw head and birch, I decided on the cross shape.

Here's what it looked like:

And after installation with flox:I should be able to glass this side this afternoon before I go to work as my wife has a wedding rehearsal to run tonight. Chapter 5 will have to wait until the 6th of June however, as I start my week on tonight. If I finish up the firewall tonight, I'll probably post the requisite "all bulkheads together and in position pic.

F-22/Doubler

Well, I guess that I didn't keep things as updated as I meant to. 1 post at the beginning of may, and now one at the end. Again I have been working on things, but simply not posting. Some small boring things that don't warrant photos, much less a post, such as finishing tracing my firewall drawings, sanding, and reading.

I did manage to finish F-22 and the doubler though.

F-22 with doubler installed:

Glassed and waiting for cure:

Here's a close-up of where F-22 and the doubler meet:

And finally, F-22/doubler completed. I've been sanding off the excess fiberglass and I'm afraid that it is all over the bulkhead here. No, my bulkhead is not full of air pockets!

Aft Gear Attach Bulkhead

I completed the aft gear attach bulkhead. Here it is ready for glassing:

And glassed:

I'll try and do better about keeping my blog updated in a more timely fashion. On the plus side, I've started a new 7 days on - 7 days off shift which should allow me more time to work on the aircraft. On the minus side, I've started studying for my dispatcher license and that will take up a good deal of my time in the near future. Minus being that I'll have less time to work on the aircraft, getting my dispatch license is definitely a good thing overall. Just have F-22 and the firewall left in chapter 4. Hope to complete that next off week (I start my on week tonight) and get things prepped for Ch.5.

Forward Gear Attach Bulkhead & F-28

I've completed the forward gear attach bulkhead and F-28. I traced the outlines for the G.A.B. hardpoints onto the solid fiberglass from the plans and cut them out using the router attachment a fiberglass cutting bit for the dremel. It wasn't easy and I ended up cutting close to the trace lines and then sanding w/ 36 grit sandpaper to fit. Worked well, just took a while.

Here are F-28 and the upper portion of the forward GAB and F-28 ready for glassing:

The upper and lower sections will be joined later. Upper portion of the forward GAB completed:

The lower section of the forward GAB ready for glassing:

And completed:

F-28 completed:

IP Complete

I realize that I haven't posted in a while, but I have been working on the aircraft. The IP is complete now. I finished glassing and then added the stiffeners. Here you can see them cut and laid out. I might add that I shortened the vertical stiffeners when I realized that they were too long:

I used 2x4's to hold the pieces in place while 5-min epoxying them into place:

All stiffeners in place w/ micro along the edges:

For the electrical conduits I would glass first the single ply on the upper surface, allow it to cure, and then do the 2 plies for the conduit itself as shown below:

Finally, the IP completed:

Instrument Panel

Glassed the front sided of the IP this morning. 2 plies bid overall and 1 ply uni above the thigh cutouts.
Here it is ready for glassing:

Glassed:

And weighted down:

Gear Attach Bulkhead Hardpoints

Last week I laid up the 1/4" solid fiberglass hardpoint section to cut cut out the gear attach bulkhead hardpionts.

Here's the 22 plies of bid laid out and ready to epoxy:

Epoxied:


Weighted down:

And ready to cut the hardpoints out of:

Aft & Forward Landing Gear Attach Bulkheads

I ended up having some extra time this evening and was able to cut out the forward and aft landing gear attach bulkheads. The .25" foam used for these two bulkheads was a lot easier to work with then the .2" used on F-22, F-28 and the IP. I was able to cut everything with a razor and then just do some light sanding.

Everything laid out and ready for cutting:


And everything cut out:

F-22

I finished cutting and shaping F-22 and the F-22 doubler on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Here they are traced out and ready to cut:


Cut and ready to by 5-min epoxied together:


5-min epoxied and weighted down:


And finally, all put together and ready for glassing:

Well, its back to work tonight and I'll be working several overtime days next week, so I don't expect to get too much done. Still need to finish shaping F-28 and then it's on to the landing gear attach bulkheads and the firewall/temporary firewall.

Instrument Panel

I've finished tracing all the drawings for Chapter 4 and can now finally get to work. Last night/this morning I laid out the drawings for the instrument panel. I traced the bulkhead by punching small holes through the paper using the pointy end of a compass. Then, I connected the dots lightly with a sharpie.

After transferring the drawings to the foam, I cut the general shape using a razor and then got close to the exact shape using a dremel tool. Finally I used 80 grit sandpaper to get the foam to the final shape.
Finally, something recognizable as aircraft part-like! After sanding, I 5-min epoxied the sections together (with wax paper above and below to avoid sticking) and weighted everything down.

Now, its time for bed. I hope to cut out the foam for bulkheads F-22 and F-28 tonight. Oh, and while the dremel works great for getting close, it is very dusty.

So, what have I been doing this week? Tracing drawings. It's slow going, but I've found myself really enjoying the process. There's just something very simple and relaxing about spending an hour or two tracing drawings. Aside from that, I'm out of epoxy so I decided to get (a little) ahead of myself in the tracings. Not too much, though - I'm still tracing things from Ch.4. On the subject of epoxy though, I found a boat supply store about 20 miles away that supplies the kind of epoxy and hardener I need. Should save some cash on shipping at least. Want to see 1.25 hours worth of tracing compressed into 1 minute? Click the video below. Oh, and the flip is because the drawings often require you to trace a mirror image when both the left and right sides are the same. I had already traced the left side and the plans have you trace the right side as a mirror image.

Front Seatback Bulkhead Finished

Well, pretty much finished anyway. I cut and floxed the corners Wednesday night and went to the mall with Julia to try and find some maternity clothes. After we got back I glassed the back side. I worked inside as it was a bit too cold to work in the garage and I was impatient to finish the seatback.

Detail of floxed corner:


And the finished piece (now in the garage after cure and knife trim):

The pretty much finished part is a couple of air bubbles I found where the foam had been 5-minute epoxied to the workbench (you can see them in the foreground of the pic). I don't think that I let the micro cure in the holes long enough before I glassed out the back. Should be a pretty simple repair.

Next will be bulkheads F-22 and F-28. Before I can start on those I have a lot of drawing tracing to be done. I found that setting up my first seatback bulkhead (yeah, guess I forgot to mention that - it didn't go well, but after doing some more online research I've found where I went wrong. Aircraft Spruce, in their wisdom, supplies you with two pieces of the 3/4" foam used in this step. In my research I saw that others had benefited from that as well so I didn't feel too bad.) set up on a card table with a bright light works very well for my drawing tracings.

Beginning Chapter 4

It's finally warm enough in Texas for me start working on Chapter 4! Chapter 4 consists of the seven fuselage bulkheads to be used in the aircraft. The first is the front seatback. The seatback is 28.8" X 48".
The instructions say that you might have to glue two pieces of foam together because of the size, but Aircraft Spruce supplies pieces of foam large enough that you don't have to do any gluing. After cutting the foam to the right dimensions, I cut a 45° angle along the top of the bulkhead as it will be installed at a 45° in the fuselage.
I also went ahead and trimmed the the top cutouts although the plans say to do this step after glassing the first side. After reading problems that other builders encountered when trying to cut these after glassing I went ahead and precut these. I decided to wait until actually fitting the bulkhead in the fuselage before making the other cuts though as many suggested that this might make life easier in chapter six. We'll see how I feel when trying to cut the bulkhead then.

Detail of front seatback top front cuts:


After cutting the piece I cut the bid. fiberglass to be used in glassing the front side. The bid. has to be cut and put on at a 45° angle. The problem is that the fiberglass roll isn't wide enough to cover the piece with one section so you have to use a small triangle to finish each of the two plies used. I must admit that I'm not 100% comfortable with butting up the edges of the fiberglass, but that is the method prescribed in the plans for use with bid. fiberglass. Uni fiberglass has an overlap of 1" when putting two pieces together, and I must admit that I was tempted to overlap the bid. but followed the plans and simply butted the two pieces together.

Here's a pic of the fiberglass cut out over the piece before starting glassing:

I then applied micro to the front of the front seatback bulkhead after 5 min epoxying the bulkhead to the workbench:
Then I glassed in the two plies at opposing 45° angles and peel-plied the edges and the area where the two pieces of the second ply butted together:

I hope to finish out the seatback bulkhead tonight (or tomorrow a.m.) if it stays warm enough.

Oh, and just because I like my speedometer-like thermometer:


Hope to post again tomorrow a.m.