Friday 1
We decided to glue the upholstery that goes from the headrest down to the seat back in two parts. We glued the head rest and top area and decided to leave the back rest area until tomorrow.
One little job I have been doing while Jenny has been doing all of the hemming & stitching was to put some lettering on the gear retract panel to state "UP" & "DOWN". I had some dry transfer lettering to apply. Well this little task is turning into a chore. The first attempt, which ultimately proved to be my best attempt I got the lettering slightly crooked so I decided to use some alcohol to remove it. Well that was a bad plan because it smeared black everywhere. So I had to rub all the paint off and re-paint it.
Saturday 2
First job was to finish off gluing in the area down the back of the seat. As usual, the actual task went pretty quickly, most of the time was taken up carefully masking things off so spray adhesive doesn't go every where.
We then spent the rest of the day making up the pattern for the side panel, cutting it out, hemming it and gluing it in place. I tried the panel on the starboard side and it was a pretty good match so we cut out a piece of cloth for the starboard side
I had another try at putting lettering on the gear retract panel and this was worse that my first attempt. I tried to remove the lettering and ended up in the same mess.
Sunday 3
Jenny hemmed and stitched the starboard side panel while I continued to mess up the lettering on the gear retract panel. I have decided there has to be a better way.
We glued in the final panel and admired our work for a while. Not bad for a first attempt. If we were to do it again the only thing we would have changed would be to wrap the cloth around the head rest a bit differently. The only bit left to do now is around the seat pan where our thighs go.
We decided to call it a day and go flying. We flew out west to the Wisconsin border and down the Mississippi river and generally enjoyed the scenery.
Monday 4
No building
Tuesday 5
We cut out cloth for the thigh area and hemmed it up. This is actually a small area and a fairly simple shape, so we were able to cut this out of scraps. I still have a lot of material left on the roll. I'll be curious to see how much is required to cover the seats when we get around to making the backrests and cushions.
Wednesday 6
We glued in cloth around the thigh area tonight. As usual it took about 40 minutes to mask up the area and about 15 minutes to actually glue the cloth in place
Thursday 7
No building
Friday 8
I have been wondering what kind of finish to put on the instrument panel and I found a "Black on Black" speckle finish paint made by Zolatone. I did a test piece a few days ago and it look okay. This stuff really smells badly and this afternoon was unseasonably warm so I put the first coat of paint on the instrument panel.
Saturday 9 ~Tuesday 12
We decided to take a long weekend so we fired the Comanche up and went to St. Louis for a few days. Unfortunately the trip coincided with some heavy weather and it was the roughest flying I have done in a while, with head winds both ways and some concern about possible icing in cloud.
Wednesday 13
No building
Friday 15
No building
Saturday 16
I decided to fit the hose up to the wheel cylinder. After pondering how to fit the hose on the gear frame for a while I took a quick trip down to the hardware store and found some nice neat clips.
While peering up, under and around I discovered that the brake cylinder hits the tunnel. This was a real "ah shit" because there is no easy answer to this problem.
I made up a small connector for the pilots side joy stick using a 9 pin D connector and fitted it up. I am running a push to talk and a trim switch on the pilots side and just a push to talk on the passenger side.
Sunday 17
I got under the aircraft again to look at the brake cylinder and I sort of wished I hadn't. In addition to the possibility of the brake cylinder catching on the side of the tunnel I found that it also was touching on the top of the tunnel as well.
I decided to do something different while I thought about that little problem so put a coat of SuperFil around the windscreen and got things ready to do the last of the filling and sanding on the fuselage.
In the afternoon I set the instrument panel up outside and put another coat of black on black speckle paint on. Gee that stuff smells bad!
Monday 18
No building
Tuesday 19
No building
Wednesday 20
My friend Marty came by for a little while and helped me to turn the aircraft on its side.
Thursday 21
No building
Friday 22
No building
Saturday 23
After talking to Neville at the factory I decided that I was going to have to cut a section out of my tunnel to clear the brake cylinder and refit the old style mount for the brake cylinder.
I got the Dremmel out and hacked a hole in and did quite a few retracts until it had a good 10mm of clearance around all of the edges. I then laid a "dish" of 4 plies of bid and put on some peel ply.
Sunday 24
I noticed quite a bit of discussion on the Europa forum about putting a layer of tape around the inside of the fuselage bulkhead and I remembered that I hadn't got around to doing mine. While the aircraft was on its side was the perfect time to do half of this so I busied myself with that task. It is the sort of job that would be a real bugger to do with the aircraft the "right side up"
I did a bit more sanding and filling around the windscreen and trimmed and filled around the brake cylinder cut out that I had glassed up the day before.
I did quite a bit of planning and thinking about how to run the fuel line forward from the pump. I really wanted to run it in metal but my attempt at doing this was proving that it was going to be quite a work of art in bending and shaping.
Monday 25
I more or less settled on using the stainless steel sheathed rubber hose that Europa supply for the fuel hose run forward. It appears that this has to be run on top of the tunnel so I made up some small saddles through which I will run cable ties to secure the hose.
Tuesday 26
EAA chapter meeting
Wednesday 27
I reduxed up the saddles in place to hold the fuel hose from the gascolator forward.
Thursday 28
I fitted the fuel hose back to the gascolator / pump and retracted the gear. There are several things that can foul up here. The obvious one is the landing wheel, but also the flap retract rod and the flap retract arm in the back. Fortunately everything cleared, but I sure would not have wanted to be shaping up a metal fuel line to find its way past all these obstacles.
The manual suggests that the fuel line passes through the stainless steel fire wall, but I am not so keen on that idea. I am thinking of using a bulkhead fitting and running it thought the fire wall. To do this it is going to have come up through the wheel well behind the instrument panel. I put in the instrument panel to figure out fuel bulkhead fitting locations and it looks like I can make this happen without getting into too much trouble.
I did a bit more sanding around the wind screen and stood the aircraft up. Last task for the day was to refit the port side door and fill the area around the door frame towards the window.
Friday 29
I sanded back the area around the door filled the previous evening and refitted the starboard door. I then filled the area around the port door frame towards the window. Unfortunately for what ever reason this door doesn't quite sit down properly and I am not sure if I should refill it or just leave it. I suspect that after a couple of days in the hot sun both doors won't fit perfectly again!
The last job I did was to fit in the cover in the wheel well. Since it fitted once you would think that it would be an easy job.... oh well.
Saturday 30
I had a try at painting the aluminum instrument panel. Painting is getting tricky this time of year because its so cold and I had to set up some heat lamps in the garage. I ran one coat on but there were too many dust spots so I sanded it off and did it again. The second try was better, not perfect but good enough.
I purchased some Nulite instrument lights a few months previously (http://www.nulite.net ) so I did a trial fit up with the lights and the instruments. Unfortunately the lights are slightly bigger than the instrument cut out and due to the tight spacing these things are going to need a bit of modification to fit. I bought them after looking at them at the Oshkosh Air Show. They look pretty neat and I sure hope I can get them to work in my panel.