A Little Setback

While I was readying the plane for its trailer tour tomorrow, I tried to close up the cowling to make it streamlined. Obviously I did this for the first time ever as it turned out to not fit.

This gap showed after I put all the other hinge pins in. No matter how much I tried, I could not even get the pin in the first two eyes of the left side.

My guess is that when I glued the channel in for the air supply to the radiator I must have distorted the shape of the lower left cowl just enough to bulge it out a bit and "pull" the fiberglass down and away for the top cowl.
I will try to fix this by "filling" the edge up with resin, remove the piano hinge and then rematch and redrill this side and rivet a fresh piano hinge in. This will show until it is painted but I think it will work and save me from completely redoing the upper cowl.

It's a pity but just more work and nothing serious at least.

The rest was easy. Just putting the canopy on and taping up the loose side of the cowling.

Ready to go. Let's see how it works out in the morning ...