I finally got around to installing the
titanium firewall barrier that I have been planning. It was a bit of a chore for several reasons.
- Titanium is hard to drill holes into...especially larger holes. I ended up drilling smaller holes and then using a metal shaving bit in my Dremel tool to get them sized up properly.
- I used spray adhesive to adhere both the 1/8" fiberfrax to the stainless steel firewall and then again to stick the titanium to the fiberfrax. Worked out well except that when you put the two pieces together...they stay...no adjustments. This caused me to have several slightly misaligned holes. No big deal but I did have to go back and route the holes in the titanium out a bit to allow the bolts to go through.
- Titanium foil is sharp! No I didn't cut myself ...yet
When all was complete and I had installed most of the firewall mounted components everything looked good. More importantly in the very unlikely event of a firewall forward fire I will have extra time to get the airplane on the ground before bad things happen.
In addition to the firewall work I also finished trimming up the windshield. Its now ready to be glued in and then the leading edge fiberglass work completed.
I also spent a ton of time this past couple of weeks working on my wiring diagram. I've been working on this thing for over two years now but its time to put all the details together into one main drawing. I think I'm now ready to start fabricating the main avionics wiring harness.
Finally, a while back I had asked Geoff at
Aerosport if he would use his nice 3D printer to print up a housing for my autopilot controller. It came last week so I just had to put it in place to see how it looked. I may make a few more edits to it before the final install.
One more topic I wanted to record in this blog. The past few weeks have been rather unusual for me...and probably most of the rest of the world. We have been dealing with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Right now we have been under an order to remain home except for necessary trips to the grocery store or work if you are in a critical job that can not be done from home.
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| Windshield trimmed and ready to be glued in place. |
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| transferred my paper template to the bottom layer of fiberfax for cutting. |
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| I used several pieces of paper all taped together to make a template of my firewall. I then used this template to mark up both the fiberfrax and the titanium. It actually worked out pretty good. |
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| Fiberfrax just before it was glued to the firewall |
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| All glued in place except the center recess. |
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| The final result! Once the cowling mount flanges are installed I will come back and use the some Firebarrier 2000 to seal up any edges. |
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| Here is a picture of the wiring diagram for this airplane. Its rather large which makes it hard to see but if you click on the image you will get a better view. Note that this is only the avionics wiring diagram. The main power distribution, switches, lighting and assorted smaller systems are not included. |
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| Autopilot controller in the mount that Aerosport printed up for me. Its not bolted in yet but it fit nicely. |
