Saturday 1
One of the distraction to working on my Europa is that I have to do some work from time to time on the Piper Comanche. The last of the annual inspection was completed so it was time to put it back together.
Sunday 2
Since the sun was shining and I hadn't been flying for the longest time I dragged my airplane partner out and practiced some instrument approaches for a couple of hours.
The last job in the "sanding and filling" saga was the rudder. I needed to do a couple of things, firstly to re hang it on the sternpost to make sure that every thing was okay, and secondly, I wanted to mount a tail light on it. I managed to find all of the carefully stored hardware and hung the rudder and I took a bit more material out to ensure that I could get plus and minus 30 degrees. In addition the slot between the rudders edge and the sternpost was pretty un even so I cleaned that up as well.
Monday 3 ~ Thursday 6
Away on business
Saturday 8 &
I spent most of the weekend making up a foam shape for the tail light assembly, glassing it in and getting a nice transition top to the rudders surface. I took some photographs of it but for the life of me I can't seem to find them to post on the WEB site.
The last job was to fit up the final Nulite onto my instrument panel. These are a neat (but somewhat expensive) unit sold by Aircraft Spruce. When I went to fit them I found that the spacing on the Europa panel is so tight that one of them wouldn't fit. I called the supplier and he made a special order light for me at no cost..... what service!
If you want to learn more about this product take a look at http://www.nulite.net
Monday 10
No building
Tuesday 11
No building
Wednesday 12
No building
Thursday 13
My friend Gert, came over and helped my fill one side of the rudder. I had just about run out of Polyfil so reverted back to the good old Expandcell and West Systems epoxy. That stuff just does not agree with me, I just start coughing once the epoxy is opened up. It was certainly good to have some company, it went fairly quickly, but I am now a firm convert to the Polyfiber products.
Gert is building an RV8 and since he is a real big bloke its just about the right size for him.
Friday 14
No building
Saturday 15
I sanded back one side with 80 grit paper and managed to evict my teenage daughter out of bet long enough to help me mix and fill the other side of the rudder. My friend Marty swung by but he didn't stay long. Having build a Vari Eze I think he had seen enough epoxy and filler to last him for a long time.
Sunday 16
I sanded back the second side and I was greeted by lots of pin holes, and I mean a lot. No doubt about the SuperFil, if you mix it with a little heat and then apply it with a heat gun it goes on much better than the expandcell. After sanding I mixed up a batch of filler and went after the pin holes
Monday 17
I sanded back and filled the low spots, along with a lot of pin holes this evening.
Tuesday 18
I sanded back again and touched up a few more low spots, fortunately I hadn't missed by much and the filling was really just small touch ups.
I also did a little bit of work on my fuselage support to see if I can alter the c of g to make it suitable for when I want to mount the engine. If I lean on it at the moment I can overbalance it. Now since I weigh 162 lbs I figure that I am about the same weight as a Rotax, less the prop.
Wednesday 19
No building
Thursday 20
No building
Friday 21
Saturday 22 ~ Sunday 23
Sure enough, the weather turned out as promised so we took the weekend off and flew to Memphis. We had a great weekend, and the flying weather has good.
Monday 24
I sanded back both sides of the rudder with 150 grit and it looked like I had got all of the pin holes.
Tuesday 25
Wednesday 26
No building
Thursday 27
No building
Friday 28
No building
Saturday 29
I sprayed second side of the rudder and while that was drying I decided to do some work on the fuselage jig. The problem with it at the moment is that the spar is pretty close to the c of g and once I hang the engine the plane will want to see saw on the jig. The plan is to put some spacers and see that moves it forward enough.
Sunday 30
I sanded down one side of the rudder today and it came out fairly good. One little mod I made was to put the tail light into the bottom of the rudder like you see on Mooney's. Its a standard Grimes light fitting. I would have like to have made something with LED's but getting the light pattern correct is pretty tricky.
