Cowling Built Up

To strengthen the thin layer of flox and micro balloons that are holding onto the thin edge of the cowl, I laid up two strips of cloth on the inside. To smoothen it out and get it as thin as possible, I clamped the backplate on with clecos again.

The next day I removed the backplate and saw that the layup had cured perfectly and with a smooth surface.

Now the holes will have to be filled and the outer and inner surfaces smoothened and I will cut it roughly to shape.

Fixing Cowling

Here's my bird's new home:

I also took more photos of the gap between the cowl halves on the left side.

The maximum is around the size of the hinge loops. After a long debate with myself I decided that it will be easier and doable to fix this my modifying the top cowl. Here is the way I am trying to fix this.

I cut a piece of scrap aluminum and match-drilled it to be used as a backing plate. I had removed the piano hinge before that step. The plate was then slightly wiped with Carnauba wax and clecoed back in place while the in- and outside of the cowl was roughened up with 100-grit sandpaper.

I mixed epoxy and flox with a bit of micro balloons and filled up the edge. To smoothen the surface and get an even transition, I taped a strip of packing tape over the setup and pushed it down with a straightedge.

This is how the front looked like.

The plan is to glue a strip of fiberglass over the backside of the edge and then cleco the backplate on again and let it cure. That should help to keep the extension in place.

Fuselage Moved

In the morning by Flight Instructor and good friend H.L. Cooper showed up with his trailer and we loaded the fuselage onto it. Tied it down and go everything ready for the ride to the airport within 40 minutes.

I had to go into work, so I could just send him and Dawn onto their way to drop the fuselage off for me. This time I did take some photos!

And a very empty looking carport...

If anybody needs 3 16' ramps, they are free for pick-up!

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 ...

Partial Move Successful

We picked up the truck in the morning and drove it back to the carport to load it. The first step was find a way to safely get the wings inside. We tried quite some approaches and none of them succeeded - at first. The wings were still sitting in their cradle, a cradle built for RV-6 wings which are much shorter. So my RV-12 wings were extending quite a bit beyond the length of the cradle. Pushing the cradle up the built-in truck ramp did not succeed because of the wings extending too far and touching the ramp before the casters reaching the ramp.
We ended up unloading the cradle and storing one wing on a table and the other on saw horses and then carrying the cradle into the truck. We then loaded the cradle again and tied down the wings and the cradle.

We also loaded a work bench, the stabilator and the rudder/stabilizer assembly and some small stuff before heading out to the airport.

And no one was even thinking about taking pictures. Sorry!

We safely unloaded the truck which took about 1/3 of the time we had needed to figure out what to do when we were loading it.

Everything but the fuselage is in the hangar now. And again no photos.

Finally on the way back we realized that there was no evidence of this great milestone and we took some "Mission accomplished" photos.

This is my brother-in-law Mark, obviously still quite hot. And a very relieved and happy builder:

The fuselage had to wait that day as we were way too tired and overheated and Mark had to attend some other work as well.

While I did not take any photos of the parts being delivered to a new home, I at least took some photos of the relieved space.

This is where the coasting workbench was that carried the canopy for quite some time and on which the fuselage was built.

And this was the wing storage corner.

To be continued ...

Ramps Built

As I am waiting to pick up the moving truck, I can report about about the previous long workday. I was out in the heat for 10 hours building the 3 loading ramps for the move.
The idea I have is to Use a 20' U-Haul truck (about 16' usable length on the main floor) and stuff the whole fuselage in there and let two feet of the tail stick out.
To get the fuselage in, I need long ramps and three of them for all three wheels. Long, because I want to have only a small incline to push up and because the tail might actually hit the ground before the mains reach the ramp.
I used the spar box that I kept from the build and modified it to allow for an easy roll-on/roll-off experience. See the line for the cut. I used a water level to transfer the ground line onto the side of the ramp while the ramp was propped up to 3' on the opposite side (a tad more than the loading deck height of the truck).

Before I got all rallied up in the build, I decided to also start the battery test - now that I knew it would pass easily.

I was able to manage a really nice cut on the first ramp.

The opposite side was marked as well, using the cut off piece as a template.

The battery test had finally completed.

Both cut back ends of the ramp received some reinforcements.

That concluded the work on the first ramp. My wife and I out a stress test on it by both sitting in the center of the ramp while it was propped up and it did not even flex.

The second ramp was a bit tougher as I had to build something from 2x4s. The layout I used was 2 8' long 2x4 on each side building the frame of the ramp. To enhance the 8' long ones to become 16' long, I used a 4' long 2x4 on each side to support it. Here you see it with 2 additional 2x4 in the center to keep a 9.5-10" width. This photo was taken right before I put the plywood surface on.

The third ramp is for the nose wheel and a little bit less sturdy. It only used one 4' piece to extend the main side. Everything else is identical though.

It was late when I finished a very long and exhausting 10-hour workday.

Fake Spar Built

For the upcoming move to the airport I need some sturdy tie-down points on the fuselage. Others have done this successfully before and I am following their example by building a fake spar insert.

The board is made from left over pieces from building the workbench. It is 3/4" plywood and does a pretty decent job in pretending to be a wing spar.

I have reserved a 20' U-Haul truck which has an internal length of 16' 7"usable for the fuselage and the wings. The fuselage is more than 18' long, so it will stick out a bit. I intend to move the wings while they are sitting in their cradle which should allow me to even squeeze a workbench and other things in there.
Sunday is the day ....

Moving to New Home Soon

I signed a lease for a hangar at Marana Regional Airport today, so N128TL will soon move to the airport!
KAVQ:

I hope to get the move done the coming weekend. Wish me luck!