Saturday 1
Today was a sort of clean up day. I sanded the spots I had sprayed with the touch up guns and tried to resist doing more. I removed all of the masking paper and gave the floor a good vacuum and wet mop.
Sunday 2
I had been fooling around with some pin holes on the top which absolutely refuse to be filled. I bit the bullet and dug them out back to the fiberglass and filled with Superfil. I don't know hwy these little devils were so persistent.
Saturday 8
I decided that I was pretty well tired of all of this sanding and filling stuff and I wanted to work on my instrument panel. The first thing was that I found that the fuse panel really wasn't in the greatest spot. I saw that Jim Nelson had put his on the panel in front of the passenger and made a nice little cover for it and I decided to copy his idea.
The first thing I did was to space my panel out 10mm. This gave me just enough extra clearance I needed for my instruments. It also allowed some space for easy access of wires coming from the rear of the instrument panel. I added 10mm of foam on the passenger side and this gave me a nice little recess for the 24 slot fuse block.
Sunday 9
I carved out a recess from the front that I had laid in from the front slightly bigger than the fuse block. I the edges didn't cut very smoothly, and to be honest I don't know why I thought that they would, so I made a little frame from aluminum and used this as a mould for filling it with smooth prime.
I then spent the rest of the day making the fuse cover. I made this from a scrap of foam and laid over 4 plies of bid. It never ceases to amaze me how versatile this medium is.
Tuesday 11
I pulled out the aluminum frame which only did two sides of the rectangle and did the other two sides. The effect was near perfect, less than 5 minutes of sanding and it was flush.
Friday 14
Saturday 15
I mounted up the fuse block and put its cover on and ti worked out really well. Its much more accessible than where I had it under the instrument panel.
Since I am still going with a vacuum system I needed some where to mount the filter. I was going to put it in the foot well but it really looked like it was going to intrude so I had to find some where under the panel. I mounted up the radios into the panel and sure enought there was a spot that would work,
The last job for the day was to make a splash mould for an access hole.
Sunday 16
Did a lay up for the access panel and generally got to lots of little jobs. Maybe I am approaching the 90% done, 90% to go phase ?
Monday 17
I cut the hole in lay up for the vacuum pump filter and pop riveted in some rivnuts to secure the cover. It turned out okay, but I will need to tidy it up with a bit of filler here and there.
Fitted cover
Tuesday 18
I added a bit of filler around cover and it looks like to get it nice I will need a couple of goes at it.
Wednesday 19
I sanded back the filler and added a bit more. I guess I am being too fussy for an access port that can't be seen!
Thursday 20
No building
Friday 21
No building
Saturday 22
I have been long pondering the question of ventilation in the Europa. After flying 912EA in Florida I decided that the little NACA vent were pretty well useless. I have bought a heat box and I am going to bring air in from the front. I haven't completely decided if I am going to add eye ball vents, but as a first step I am going to add demister style vents in the top of the instrument panel.
To the end I put all of the instruments and radios in the panel to see how much room I actually have. The demister style vent is certainly "doable" so I carved out some blue foam shapes and covered them with 3 plies of bid.
Sunday 23
Well it seemed like time for more sanding and filling. I don't have my flaps, ailerons or XS wings filled yet so I wandered out to the garage and retrieved the port aileron and flap from the wing in the garage. I cleaned up some bench area and got one surface of one aileron and one flap filled.
I have started using SuperFill because the West Systems epoxy was disagreeing with me. It goes on about the same but is less messy to prepare and much easier to get repeatable densities in each batch. I found it goes on much nicer with a little bit of heat from a hair dryer.
Filled bottom surface of the starboard flap and the port aileron
Monday.
I filled up string lines and and a few of the hollows in both surfaces. I don't seem to have the knack of getting the string lines to back fill when I remove the line
Tuesday 25
I sanded back the port aileron using 60 grit paper. For a layer that is only 40 thou thick it sure seems to take a while to sand back. Fortunately the surface was pretty good so I didn't end up with too much filler on the surface.
Wednesday.
Tonight I sanded back one surface of the starboard flap. Same story as last night, same amount of dust, mess, pleasure..............
Friday 28
Saturday 29
I flew the Comanche back from Florida which took 8.4 hours. Why it was still down there after Sun 'n fun is a long story which does not bear repeating here.
Sunday 30
Mostly cleaned up the workshop, filled few low spots, did a little filling in the cockpit set up some blocks so I could sand the flaps.