Wings Down, Fairing Work, Cowl Check

Continuing my "work detour". I'm trying to finish everything that is not permanently attached to the fuselage so it can go out for paint. The last post I talked about finishing up all the tail stuff, and now I'm on to the fairings and such.

First I needed muscle to get the wings down from they're lofty storage. I moved the plane out from the shop to make room for the move. These are heavy wings and it's a tricky move, I was nervous, there is A LOT of work invested in all these parts and moving them racks the nerves.

The plane moved out and sitting in front of the shop.

The wings came down safely thanks to some great helpers. I had to rearrange a little, it's crowded, but it all fits.

I wanted to finish some small steps on the fairings and do a good fit check. I wasn't confident on the bond I had between my little support tabs and the fairing so I decided to reinforce them with some small flush rivets.

As you can see...they also still needed some sanding.

I also did one last fit check of the engine cowling.

My little helper. Coloring "circles" she says.

Tail Fit and Fairing Finishing

Last post I talked about the "unscheduled" paint day. I stopped working on the ignition install and painted all of my interior stuff due to some unexpected nice weather. Well I have another "work detour". I have an opportunity to get my non fuselage parts painted. I'll explain...I was looking into having my plane painted, after I was finished building and flying, at a paint shop. They take around 12 weeks to paint the plane. I didn't like the idea of flying around "naked" without paint for the entire summer and then having the plane down for 12 weeks after I finally had it flying. Then opportunity knocks. A friend of mine, Kris, and his Dad, Donny, stop by to check out the plane. Donny has refinished cars and does body work and painting. Well, you can see where this is going, we reached an agreement to have him paint the plane. This works out to my advantage in that he can go ahead and start painting anything that is not attached to the fuselage in his shop and then come back to my shop and paint the fuselage. Saves a bunch of my time and I only lose out on the few weeks it takes to the paint the fuselage. But it does mean that everything needs to be ready to paint. So I changed gears again and went back to finishing up some things I had put off years ago to completely finish everything for paint.

I started back on the tail after almost 3 years. I never finished this before because it takes up a lot of room. I needed to install the tail and then install all the fairings to prepare them for paint. Tail step one...install horizontal stabilizer. After some simple measurements to ensure it is straight, just drill some holes and install.

Shim plates in place and drilled.

Thought I'd show how the elevator horns install into the tailcone.

Elevators in place and in clamped in neutral trailing position to drill holes into the elevator horns that mate up with the control tube inside the tailcone. At this point you ensure you have the needed travel on the elevators. They are supposed to travel up and down a certain amount of degrees. I just used my iPhone to take the measurements, simple, accurate, and effective.

Installed the vertical stabilizer and rudder. Then, after trimming, installed the fairings. I eventually made some pointed guide pins from #10 bolts to help install the rudder. Otherwise it was a pain to get the attach points to line up correctly. You have to install and remove the rudder several times during all of this so I suggest you just make them early.

Here is a picture of the transition fairing sitting in place. It's not trimmed yet. But looks good.

The horizontal stabilizer tip fairings take some fancy trim work to allow clearance for the elevator and its tip fairing through full elevator movement.

After trimming the stabilizer tip fairing, which results in a complex curve on both the top and bottom. I decided to use some scrap door fiberglass material to make the aft closeout. I first taped the closeout in place and then took the tip off the stabilizer. Then fiberglassed inside of the tip using flox to make a bead along the joining corners and then a layer of glass cloth over that. I then clecoed it back onto the stabilizer to ensure it dried in the shape needed to fit.

After drying I just sanded down the mating edges. Done. And looks great.

I trimmed down the intersection fairing and then drilled all the holes and countersinks.

The plane looked so cool with the tail on!

Leg Fairings

The leg fairings were very easy, nothing much to say. I did make a small change in how the pin installs as shown in the pictures below. I cut the bottoms of the wheel fairings to clear the tires at about 7/8 to 1in clearance. This is more than the plans call for but will give me a bit more clearance on unimproved landing surfaces or in case of a flat or low tire. I just used a small block of wood and ran it along the tire while holding a marker on its edge. This made a perfect parallel line all the way around the tire.

Dates and Times
Wed 9th -1.0hr- Cut bottom of wheel fairings to clear the tires.
Fri 11th -7.75hrs- Fairing work, including: cutting the nose wheel leg fairing, riveting nutplates, countersinking holes, and other invariable tasks that go along with building an airplane.
Sat 12th -3.25hrs- Cut leg fairings and riveted hinges.

Riveted the hinges to the leg fairings with care to ensure I don't induce a twist in the fairing.

Used the template provided to mark the cuts.

I cut the legs a bit shorter than the plans because I wanted to be able to remove the pin from the top of the fairing and not the bottom. The upper intersection faring covers the entire area so it won't look any different than normal. But I like having the bend in the pin at the top so I know it can't vibrate down and out of the hinge and it's just enough room to remove the pin; and therefore the fairing.

Started Wheel Fairings

I officially started the wheel fairings. In my opinion the instructions are kind of out of order and have you doing a lot of "extra" steps that can be avoided with a little bit of planning ahead. So I redlined the instructions and rewrote a few things and got to work.

Dates and Times
June
Sat 28th -4.0hrs- Started wheel fairings.
Sun 29th -5.75hrs- Worked on fairings.
Mon 30th -1.75hrs- Fairings
July
Tues 1st -1.5hrs- Fairings
Wed 2nd -0.75hrs- Fairings
Fri 4th -3.0hrs- NOT FAIRINGS - There was a break in the heat so I took the doors outside and started sanding the primer I sprayed a while back.
Sun 6th - 4.0hrs- Moved the engine to the shop! (not included in the time) - Worked on fairings.

First I drew a line around the edge with a pencil lying flat on the workbench. This makes a good straight edge to start from. I found that cutting the fiberglass with snips worked the best.

I then found the center line, level plane, and the point where the outboard attach hole will be located. This will help a great deal in lining everything up.

Repeat for the forward fairing.

Then I built a small stand to hold the fairing level. The hole for the outboard screw was already drilled and the clearance above the wheel was verified. I also had to position the fairing in the roll orientation by placing spacers along the wheel against the edge of the fairing. Then, with a centerline of the aircraft drawn on the floor I was able to position the fairing straight in the yaw orientation. I had the hole positions marked on the internal support bracket before positioning the fairing. So once it was in the proper attitude I drilled through the faring into one of the bracket location to fully secure the fairing.

Here is a close up of the markings on the floor and the stand.

You have to cut a clearance hole for the landing gear. No big deal as the hole will be covered up later by another fairing.

Here are all the fairings properly positioned.

I outlined the position of the brackets on the fairing itself to help me know where to drill the screw holes in the next couple steps. First I drilled several small holes inside the outlines and squirted epoxy into the holes and against the brackets inside, a liquid shim. Note: be sure to tape up the internal brackets before applying the epoxy. The next step is where the outlines help out. With the dried epoxy filling the gap between the fairing and the bracket you can't see the bracket. The squares help identify a good location to drill screw hole.

After the epoxy dried I pulled off the fairings to clean up the mess the "liquid shim" left behind.

The master craftsman at work!

Help from my apprentice installing the nutplates on the fairing brackets.