Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Preping for last skin riveting

Much of my time recently has been focused on getting tasks complete that will allow me to rivet the forward top skin to the fuselage.  This skin is the last skin and major riveting job on the airplane!  I think I'm about there.

One task that is not shown below in pictures is some time I spent (on a nice sunny day) sanding and forming both doors for an 1/8" gap around the perimeter.  This gap will be filled with some 1/8" thick high density foam and then a layer of epoxy/micro will be added to both sides to make a nice consistent and even door to cabin top transition (after lots of sanding.)

I installed and torqued the rudder pedals.  I also fabricated and installed the brake lines.  I used PTFE -4 stainless braided hose and I replaced the plastic Tee with an aluminum one.  Because my master cylinders are behind the pedals it was a little harder to find a routing that would not put excessive stress on any part of a hose or impede movement of the rudder pedals.

This is a picture of the back side of the pedals.  You will notice that in the lower ports I used 90 degree fittings and the upper ports I used nipples with the 90 degree fitting on the hose.  No particular reason other than that I had the fittings available and I was hoping this would allow for more room for the hoses to pass each other during the swing.  I don't know that it made a difference but it didn't hurt anything either.

See this pile of hoses?  Seen them before?  Well this is the entire fuel system I fabricated several months ago.  Turns out I used standard rubber lined hose which normally is just fine but if I ever wanted to use fuel with alcohol in it there is a potential for degradation of these hoses.  So, I rebuilt all of my fuel system hoses using PTFE hose.  Not only is it better for the long run but it is also a bit smaller in diameter which turned out to be an advantage.

One of the steps required before I rivet this top skin on was cutting out holes for the vent fans.  Well, I decided to go with the bigger fans on the 10 so these holes are cut to fit a 120 mm fan.
 
The center support strut is now installed so I took this picture so I can contemplate wire routing to the overhead console.

I installed the top skin and the panel frame so that I could test fit the VPX/Fuse location. All is well but I couldn't resist taking a picture while its all installed.

One more picture just because I was happy with the days work.

I thought I would throw this one in there as well.  Here are a few of the parts/templates that I have printed using my 3D printer.  I have been amazed at how useful it has been.  Here are two 3D prints of the GSU25 ADHRS, one GEA24 EMS control unit, and a couple of templates that I used for drilling various holes.  The avionics templates were very handy in determining mounting locations as well as drilling holes for nut plates on the sub-panels.

There were a few days when I didn't want to work in the garage so I started working on the FlyLED lighting system.  I purchased "The Works" kit from Paul while at Oshkosh this year and just now got around to soldering the kit together.  I have to say that while I don't consider myself much of an electrician I REALLY enjoyed putting this kit together.  Getting a nice solder joint is just as satisfying as a nice line of well set rivets.

I had to cut some openings in my wing tips and trim the boards to fit the openings.  Here is the left wingtip with the boards cleco'd in place before I had started doing any soldering of lighting components.