Doors, Doublers, and More

Lots of work getting done at the Twilbeck Airplane Factory. Which is good because for a while it felt like I was inching along at a snails pace just sanding my life away and not really progressing. Then, another weekend and several nights of work were taken up by a ultra high level double top secret door handle design I have been working on. Don't worry the public will know about it soon and you can have a set of your own if you like. But until then keep the news of the ultra high level double top secret handle project to yourself.

After what felt like the doldrums of progress finally subsided the day of enlightenment was finally upon me. I took a Friday off and just worked all day on the plane. Getting a lot of things crossed off the list. Nothing major or any kind of groundbreaking milestone but it felt really good to complete so many tasks. 

Dates and Times

Mon 19th -1.25hrs- Test fit ADAHRS, removed doors and hinges

Tues 20th -1.0hr- Made and drilled antenna doublers 

Sat 31st -5.0hrs- ultra high level double top secret handle project test fitting

Sun 1st -6.0hrs- more ultra high level double top secret handle project work

Mon 2nd -1.0hr- ultra high level double top secret handle project stuff

Tues 3rd -1.0hr- ultra high level double top secret handle project things to do

Wed 4th -1.5hr-ultra high level double top secret handle project test install

Fri 6th -8.0hrs- The big day of work - created covers for the door hinge pockets, filled in the guide blocks for the door, body work around the edge of the door frame on the cabin top, glued the NACA vents in place with Lord Adhesive, primed and painted the door hinges, other misc tasks

Sat 7th  -4.75hrs- Sanded the door interiors and some other misc work

Sun 8th  -4.75hrs- Sanded the door frames and started riveting tailcone skin! 

Tues 10th  -1.5hrs- Planned routing for tailcone

Sorry no pics of the ultra high level double top secret handle project.....yet.

I cut out the shapes I needed from the scrap door skin to build the hinge covers. Mixed some flox and kinda glued them in place then did a wet layup over the top for extra rigidity.

Once everything was sanded and filled and sanded again it looked really nice. It was actually pretty easy work. I also sanded around the perimeter of the window to remove some excess Lord Adhesive that was smeared around.

I used the Lord Adhesive to glue tabs inside the overhead that will be used for cable and wire routing. Worked really well.

This is a view looking forward at the windscreen. I taped up a scrap piece of aluminum to protect the windscreen before making the cut in the glareshield. See the half moon shape in the middle of the picture. That will allow clearance for the cables and wire to travel from the back of the airplane through the overhead then down the center post of the windscreen and into the subpanel. After making the cut I lined the edge with the plastic grommet to protect the cables.

I used Lord Adhesive to install the NACA vents...no big deal here.

Here is a shot of the square door frame edging. Some areas needed a lot of buildup to line up correctly with the doors. There are actually some flat spots on the cabin top and the doors curve very nicely. So you need to build all that up to make the curves match up. The square edge will be given a slight radius during the final fitment of the doors. I finished the entire perimeter of the door frame and am very pleased with how it turned out. If you remember in my previous post where I did the window edging and body work that I filled around the doors edges. That created the base of where the edges needed to be. Now I went back and had to "back fill" inside the door frame to meet the edge that was created before. (This will all make sense if your actually doing this) I then sanded it all down with a small block of wood and sandpaper to make a miniature sanding block that created a perfect flush finish to the edge.

I also back riveted my GPS antenna doublers to the tailcone skin and then started installing skin.