2004-Feb-16

Bolts and mounting plates prepped for welding.

2004-Apr-3

The finished axles.

2006-Jun-11

Left: Making the crease in the bottom pan.

Right: Forming the rounded sides of the bottom pan. The "form" is the toe of a 3 x 3 x 3/8 steel angle, covered with masking tape to cut down on the scratches imparted to the work piece. The hard part was holding the work piece in just the right position with my left hand while whacking it with the mallet in my right. The edges are not perfectly straight arrow but they will do.

2006-Sep-25

The tail end of the top longerons had to be plugged after I poured in the Tube Seal. These homemade plugs are made from silicone rubber baffle material and some small screws.

2006-Sep-30

Making the turtle deck. Spent almost a day clamping the edges and hammering them over with a mallet, then threw the piece away because it didn't fit very well. My neighbor's bending brake made the Z bends on the second piece a snap. (Same guy who lent me his truck to bring home the air compressor and blasting sand. He'll get two rides at least!) The material is 6061-T6, .020 thick.

2007-Jan-7

Making the instrument panel from a leftover piece of .025-inch wing material, using the same technique as for making ribs. Clockwise from top left: getting ready to hammer the flange over; flange hammered and fluting started; fluting finished. Those are my homemade fluting pliers in the photos.

.025 seems thin for a panel but it's a small panel and will be anchored to two uprights. If necessary I can add a stiffener on the back side (between the PFD and the color weather radar).

2007-Feb-3

Hey, so far, so good! Adjusting the fly cutter to get a nice, tight hole around the instruments was the most difficult part. Every time I tightened the set screw the adjustment walked. Good thing I had plenty of scrap aluminum for practice.

The big instruments (airspeed and altimeter) are in the lower corners because they won't fit anywhere else. At the top of the panel, where I wanted them, they would have bumped the back of the gas tank.

2007-Aug-31

Making the second instrument panel. I know, I know - most airplanes only have one. Fact is, I did a good job on the first one (it only weighs ten ounces) except that the layout of the instruments didn't work very well. I neglected to leave room for the gas gage and I put one of the long instruments where there wasn't enough clearance to the gas tank. So....

This one is 1/4-inch plywood wrapped in two layers of fiberglass. The simple truth is there wasn't enough aluminum left to make another panel but I did have some plywood and fiberglass material, so off I went. So far, so good. Next comes more sanding and then black spray paint. This one weighs a pound, so the aluminum one had it beat in the weight department.

2007-Oct-27

The registration number, a milestone.

2008-Jan-13

My fiberglass battery box and aluminum mounting tray for a motorcycle battery. Since I'm not using a starter it's more battery than is necessary but I'm pretty sure I'll need the weight in the tail anyway.

One of my many mistakes was thinking this would be easy to do after the fuselage was covered. Actually, it would have been, for someone with elbows that bend both ways. Attaching the tray to the fuselage through the rear access hole was quite an exercise in patience. In the end I came up with a way to clamp it to the fuselage so there was no need to get in there with my welder.

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