Sun 08 January 2006 |
| Half day today with other domestic things first thing. With the temperatures back up in the high 20's we returned to the canopy. One observation was the rear edge of the canopy has moved about 3/16" forward - the only thing I can put this down to is the gas struts. However this does reinforce our plan to complete the canopy frame, sort the struts, fix the forward skin - THEN worry about trimming fore and aft edges. | 
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| The two remaining issues before we can rivet / top coat the canopy frame are: the lower forward edge of side skirts and the 'ears' on the forward skin. The side skirts are just cosmetic - easily fixed. | 
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| The 'ears' are more of a challenge. In particular the LHS bends out at the top. | 
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| The final decision was - remove the whole ear. The forward skin was cut just below where the plexi comes to, the whole area will be glassed in by the end. | 
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| Then more fibreglassing, second side of the rudder lower tip with micro-balloons and also re-fixed the nav light spreader that came off yesterday. | 
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| With some flox mixed, I filled the problem countersinks on the RHS side skirt and bedded the skin onto it. Once the resin has cured I'll re-drill / countersink and then we can rivet it. | 
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| To finish the day I got the HS / VS down off the wall and re-attached them to the fuselage. This is needed to be able to rig the empennage control surfaces so that the fibreglass tips can be completed. Also started looking at possible mountings for the 'rabbit ears' for the VOR antenna, the idea is for the top of the VS tip to hold it, but rudder travel may cause some problems - we will see. | 
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