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Sun 12 February 2006

On my own today - sorted some nutplates on the centre cover and remade the canopy latch push rod. The previous one had some nasty scores where the tube rotated whilst I drilled / tapped it - new material was ordered and this time I used the lathe chuck to hold the work - much better.
Then back to the cowl. With the engine off the two halves are easier to work on mounted on the fuse. The upper cowl is going to need some trimming, but looks generally OK at the front joint.
Before doing any more resin work, I decided to try and sort the backing plate for the side hinge covers. First attempt was a .025 AL backer - a quick CAD drawing and some interesting hole-saws / shaping.
However the metal plate was not flexible enough so I went with a pair of 2oz plys - some eyeball engineering and three cleco's - a new version. Hopefully this will provide a basis for an exterior plug to be made for the final exterior shape.
Then into resin mode - having a second person really helps with keeping the cloth clean. Like lots of things in the project - single person is possible, but two people make it easy(ier).
The side parts bonded nicely with some flox.
The front surface was more problematic, I was hoping to have a single ply on the plate and then pulled it into the tubes. The issue was I couldn't get the glass cloth to lay flat on both surfaces, we tried multiple ways but nothing worked. Ended up removing the cloth and cleaning up - rather deflating end to the day.
Carl Morgan