She stands!

Not much real progress to report here. I have almost completed the landing gear mounting steps and tomorrow I will begin preparations for mounting the axles.

Nevertheless I think this is sort of a milestone because the bird is standing on its own two feet for the first time.




First time on it's own two (soon to be three) feet (soon to be wheels)....

Chapter 9 - Main gear - Part 2

More work on the main gear today. This stage has turned out to be quite involved. But I am almost done. Unfortunately I only ordered two of the large washers that are to be floxed and glassed to the outside of the gear attach tabs. I will need to order two more and flox/glass them in place to complete this step.

Here the outer glass tabs are ready with flox fillets for the inner glass tab layups.


Here are the first of the inner glass layups. The clamps are lightly tightened down to hold the glass layers in place during cure.


The inner glass layups completed, cured and trimmed. Holes bored through all layups and the steel tube inserted.


The plans call for a foam peice to be shaped and inserted between the steel tubes and the main gear. However it was suggested that the foam piece be replaced with flox, which is what I did. After troweling on the flox I layed up two plies BID over the tubes and the outer washers (only on the left tabs because I ordered two few, the other two will be installed when I have them in from ACS).

Engine mount

Time for a little diversion. I am awaiting a counter bore tool and some hardware from ACS to finnish up the mounting of the main gear strut. In the meantime I have been working on an engine mount I acquired. After some unexpected debating between folks on the builders forum, I settled on refurbishing the mount as follows:

First was to bead blast, followed by a primer coat and finally a few coats of white paint. At first I intended to have the mount powder coated. However it was advised from a few sources that powder coating could make detection and repair of any cracks that may form (apparently a common occurrence with these mounts) more difficult. I also removed all the little screws you can see pictured and squirted in some linseed oil to deter corrosion.

Here is the mount as I received it..


After bead blasting by my brothers coleages Jeff and Deano. Thanks guys!


Jeff and Deano discovered two "cracks" I am not sure if they really could be considered cracks or just minor weld defects. They went ahead and performed two pea sized repairs....




Then after squirting some linsead oil into the tubing (through the little screw holes), the mount was primed..


And painted...