Trimmed the two halves of the pylon to the same height (or more accurately, so the upper edges lie in the same plane), and clamped, drilled and bolted the bearers.
Collected the replacement vibration isolators, cut the reinforcing plate for the pod, and then measured, clamped, drilled & assembled everything.
Ordered the Exhaust Mount and Ball-joint conversion kits from California Power Systems.
Trimmed an inch of surplus material off the upper end of each of the instrument pod bearers, and drilled the mounting holes through the vertical stabiliser. Can't push this any further till I get my paws on the relevant bolts.
Fabricated the two plates which clamp the StarBee upper seat-belt mount to the mast.
Ordered a couple of pieces of sheet ABS plastic for the instrument panel... which Field International are giving to me free, apparently as offcuts from a larger order. Many thanks!
Spent the evening out at Pikes Point, at a fantastic presentation by Ricky de Agrela of Freedom Flight.
Collected the exhaust mounting kit, which the courier apparently tried to deliver yesterday. Am impressed - the stuff was only ordered on the 5th, out of California.
This evening I started the installation process by drilling the extra bolt holes in the cooling shroud for the mounting brackets, and relocating the spacer nuts to the four outermost holes.
Installed the two ball-joint kits, drilled the brackets and completed the exhaust installation.
An extremely slothful weekend spent largely in front of the fire with a book... I have however managed to reorganise the garage, so that Sue's car, the trailer and the gyro can co-exist peacefully, with enough room to install the tail section.
Clamped the upper harness mount to the mast, bent the lap belt plates, fabricated two acetal (Delrin) spacers (not particularly well) and completed the seat belt installation. Some kind of padding will need to be acquired - the belt edges are extremely unpleasant against one's neck.
Have re-done the acetal spacers, and fabricated two new lap-belt plates. Those plates are sandwiched between the keel and the brackets anchoring the the drag struts, and the outward-bent portion of the plates didn't quite clear the brackets. The replacements have the bend located further away from the lower bolt.
Had a rude awakening very early this morning, footsteps coming up the stairs and then a heavy knocking on the front door. While I was still frantically wondering which of my past sins had finally gained the attention of the police, I identified the individual in question as a courier... delivering the ABS sheet for the instrument panel. This gentleman was Chinese, I think descended from hardy Mongolian stock - he actually made the effort to trek up to the house, rather than just leaving an "undeliverable" card down at the garage.
I need to get some focus back on the aircraft - the last couple of days have been spent outside, Geocaching.
Continued with the tail installation this evening. Have temporarily mounted the fin on the tail, but am in a kind of a catch-22 situation. There are two tubular struts which support the horizontal stabilisers and which need to be cut and drilled. Also needing to be postioned and drilled are the anchor brackets for these struts out on the stabilisers. These in turn are affected by (or may dictate) the location of the stabilisers on the fin. Kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. Will need to devise some means of supporting the stabilisers in space. In the meantime have measured up for the array of bolts to be acquired.
Purchased the array of bolts necessary to bolt the stabilisers to the fin, the fin to the tail, the stabilisers to the struts, the hip bone to the thigh bone...
Spent last night and this evening positioning and drilling the holes to mount the brackets which attach the stabilisers to the fin. This is devilishly difficult and very slow going. Complicating the situation - almost none of the holes can be positioned using the drill press. They're either too far in or there's no useable reference surface. I'm not 100% happy with the current effort, and may yet plug the existing holes with epoxy and re-drill.
One nice thing about fibreglass, you can always add more to it... so this evening I adjusted the position of some of the bolt holes in the fin using a rat-tailed file, leaving elliptical "exit" holes in the fibreglass skin in a couple of places. These will get filled with a mixture of milled glass fibre and epoxy. With the LH brackets now in the correct location & spacing, I was able to position, mark up and drill the corresponding holes in that stabiliser.
A very long day. Eventually wandered down the garage and found the fibreglassing paraphenalia. Then thought better of it and retreated back upstairs to get in some much needed sloth.
Cut and drilled the first of the two struts that support the stabilisers - the usual dramas getting the holes centred, and the ends will have to be cut away at an angle to clear the bolts anchoring the brackets. Decided to postpone the fibreglassing till the struts are finished.
