Finishing up the doors and starting on windows

Finally the doors are about finished!  I've got a few tasks related to the doors yet to complete such as installing the 3rd latch block and the door closed indicators but for the most part I am done with them.  The painting turned out to be much harder than expected.  I should have expected more because I knew I wanted the inside of the doors to look good.  This is one area I will look at many times per flight so I didn't want to have to look at a blemish that I should have fixed.  Two different priming sessions, three paint sessions, and lots of sanding but at least I'm done...I think.

I didn't take any pictures with just the primer on but my last post had a few.  I ended up sanding most of that grey primer off in an attempt at filling all the pin holes.  I did a final sealing layer of Azko epoxy primer (the green stuff), lightly sanding with 320 grit, and then the first coat of paint.  This is after the first coat of paint.  The red blotches are spots where I didn't do a great job of filling the pin holes.  I had to come back with spot putty to fill those holes.

Final coat of paint applied.  Ready to install back on the fuselage...however I seem to have misplaced the shims and bolts that hold the pilot side door on.  I spent two days tearing the garage and many areas of the house apart and my best guess is that I must have mistakenly placed the bag of parts in the plastic box I took to Oregon with the engine last month.  Poo.  Now I have to make up some more shim's and size the bolts again.

This is the first time the windshield has been on the airplane so I had to take a picture.  I was measuring how far forward I had to paint the glare-shield.

This is the glare-shield painted.  Now all I have to do is install the windshield!

Rear windows trimmed and ready to glue in.  I am using the Silpruf method that is used on Glasair's.  Several RV-10 builders have used the method and it makes for a strong but professional looking install.  Van's method has you using weldon glue and then fiber-glassing over the windows.  The end result is lots of cracked fiberglass because the windows expand and contract at a different rate.

Yep, more doors

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with this darn doors.  Nothing hard about it but they sure are messy as you will see from the pics below.  These last couple of weeks have been very cold so my time in the garage has been short.  In addition to the tasks I took picture of below I also managed to finish riveting the top skin on the inside.  I forgot to do this when Travis was here so finished up the last 8 rivets.  I also epoxied in the two forward Naca ducts.

If you look at the hand hold (the hole) in the picture above you will notice that the instrument panel (the carbon fiber you see in the opening) blocks about half of the opening.  There is still room to fit your fingers in there but it looked kinda sloppy to me so I drilled the doublers out and fabricated a couple of new ones that move the grip further aft.  In the picture below you can see the new location.  

The hole is not quite as large as it was but its still 3/4" deep and actually has more room for your fingers than the original.  I suppose I could have modified the glare shield and moved it even further aft but I don't think its necessary.

Oh yea, I took the engine to and engine shop in Oregon last week so that they could install the prop governor drive gears that were left out by Avian.  I asked them to run the engine as well if they could.

I did some work on the panel as well.  The lower console is fitted and drilled to the upper panel.  I installed it in the airplane to make sure it all fits nicely.  Next up for this area is to drill the lower console to the tunnel screw locations.

With one side installed and the other off I took this picture to get some sort of idea of the angle and depth that is available in the lower console.  The aluminum square is marked in inch sections and it was 6" long.  It was clear that nothing with much depth would fit down there so I had to re-design the avionics in the panel.  More of that below.

As I mentioned above....we got a little snow this week.  2 full snow days and 2 that were iffy.

Back to the panel redesign.  On VAF there is a thread going on right now where Doug Reeves asked about having his autopilot controller mounted on the glare shield similar to the way commercial airplanes do.  Somebody designed a 3D printed housing that could be used for this purpose but unfortunately the design they used would not work for me.  So, I dusted off the Solidworks program, did a little designing of my own, and printed up this test housing.  It fits very nicely and will exactly as I had hoped it would.  I sent the design drawings off to Geoff at Aerosport to see if he would print the housing for me and possible list it for sale on his site so others with the Aerosport 310 panel might take advantage of the design.

An inside view of the housing.  Notice that the bottom of the housing actually hooks below the glare shield and the tapered part facing forward is there so I can drill a hole and run my wiring down into the avionics bay.

Ok, I saved the door work for last.  In this picture you probably wont see much unless you have built an RV-10 with these doors.  Those two top slots were actually openings where the hinged bolt to the door.  I posted something about this a while ago when I riveted nut plates to the hinges...well this is why.  The door seal needs a flat surface to sit against on the outer edge of this raised door portion.  Those hinges (and the door pin guides in the picture below) leave an air gap if you don't do something to seal them up.  In this picture you can see where I fiberglassed over the opening and then cleaned it up to look like it was stock.

This is the forward side of the door.  In those cavities the door pin guides get installed.

This is the aft side door pin cavities.

More Doors

The past few weeks have been dedicated to working on the door fit and the instrument panel.  I used my CNC to do some test cuts of the inserts for the instrument panel and found that there is a small error in the conversion from the Solidworks export DXF to the import process in Cambam (the GCode tool I use).  Turns out that everything I cut is just a bit over-sized.  So I took on the task of learning the Solidworks CAM solution.  It was a bit of a steep learning curve but I finally managed to get it working.  However....on my first test cut the controller board for my CNC failed.  I think it was in the USB connector but regardless it has become intermittent which is a problem.  Bottom line is I ordered some new parts for the CNC and will be making some upgrades to it soon.

Regarding the doors, I've been working on getting the seals to fit properly.  Once I felt they were about right I worked on the spacing between the doors and the cabin top.  Still lots of work to do but here is what I have so far.

This is the pilot side of the panel.  This is the insert that I cut that allowed me to discover the size difference in the DXF conversion process.  I had to do some significant edge sanding to get this one to fit properly.  I may have to do more since the paint will take up some room.  I'm considering having this anodized instead of painting but need to find a good local shop.

Passenger side door gap after inserting the foam spacer (seal), applying micro liberally on both sides of the foam, and then sanding the micro and foam spacer down to create an even transition.  In this picture the foam has not yet been removed.

Side view of same door as picture above.

In this picture the door on the right side of the photo still has the 1/8" rubber seal in place, the left side has been removed.  To open the door at this stage I had to use a razor knife to cut through the seal all the way around the door.  Then I could get the door open but had to remove the seal from both the door and the cabin top.  Both proved to be harder than I would have liked.

In this picture you can see the seam between the cabin top and the fuselage.  I sanded and then filled the small gap with micro/epoxy filler.

The door gap came out pretty nice by using some 1/8" rubber gasket material.  If I were going to do it again I don't think I would use the same stuff since it was a real bugger to remove.  The sticky side was up against the door and the plain rubber side was against the cabin top.  Turns out that epoxy loves that plain rubber and stuck like crazy.  I had to actually sand the gasket material off of the cabin side.  

Take one item off the list and add three more!

The list keeps getting longer!  Every time I tackle one task I find three more that need to be added.  Oh well, its lots of fun.

Door struts installed and doors in up position!  Very cool!

Much of the build time this week was composed of my trying to figure out where everything will fit under the panel. I made good progress and have fitted the following items.  The VPX, Engine bus fuse panel, Accessory bus fuse panel, backup power bus fuse panel, two ADAHRS, GAD 29, SDS ECU case, two voltage regulators, and the GEA24.  I've also located where I plan on putting the backup battery as well as its related parts (solenoid).

I used a little thermal paste and a couple of screws to mount the engine bus supply diodes to a heat sink.  

Close up with the door struts installed.

I got the static system run up to the front of the cabin.

I riveted these supports (black parts) on both side of the cabin.

With Travis's help I riveted the aft top skin on.  This in and of itself was a big project.  I had to not only rivet the skin and the antenna doubler I fabricated but I also had to remove, reinstall and torque the 8 bolts that hold the two longeron halves together.

Finally I turned the fuselage around so I can start working on the firewall stuff.  I learned on the 9A that installing nut plates and doublers is much easier when you can reach both sides of the firewall at one time.

Doors - the beginning

Based on the experiences of others I have decided to do the doors next.  This will allow me to fit the strut brackets before I install the overhead console.  As such this post begins what I expect to be a couple of months worth of door posts...

First step is to trim the door skins to a more reasonable size and then begin the process of fitting and (even more) trimming to fit the opening in the cabin.  The initial trimming is complete, the doors are bonded together, and the final door assembly has been trimmed yet again to fit into the opening.  The hinges have been attached and the doors actually operate as intended!

One other item of note is I've moved the fuselage over to the big side of the main garage bay and I've disassembled the divider wall.  I can still fit both cars in the garage and I now have room to install the motor mount, tail components, and maybe even the engine (without the tail installed).   I did have to order and install a new garage door opener for the small bay and while I was at it I decided to upgrade the lighting in the garage to all LED.

Door's cleco'd to the fuselage so I could drill the holes to hold the door on while the two halves cure...see more below.

Two things of interest in this picture.  First the fiberglass in the top of the picture.  This is a product called Parabeam.  Its hard to see but its actually a 3D type of material with two skin's sandwiched around a lattice structure that gives the whole thing a mattress look and feel.  Second is the spreader I used to lay the epoxy/Cabosil mixture onto the doors.  I used a little trick I learned while doing tile work.  The edge of this spreader is notched so that I can lay a consistent layer of epoxy to bind the two door halves together.

The inner half of the door sanded and ready for wet-out and epoxy mix.

Fuselage with a layer of plastic as well as some packing tape to keep the doors from sticking to them.

Left side door cleco'd to the fuselage after I spent about an hour wetting out the Parabeam, wetting out the surfaces where the epoxy/Cabosil mix will meet, and the finally the epoxy/Cabosil mixture applied.

Lots of squeeze out so hopefully I got a nice amount of coverage.

On the right side door I managed to take a picture of the epoxy/Cabosil mixture after I had "combed" it with the spreader I mentioned above.

A look from inside the cockpit through the baggage door after I had cleco'd the right side door on for curing.

Remember that Parabeam stuff I mentioned earlier?  Well this is what it looks like when its cured.  You can see the inner lattice from this perspective.  I took this picture looking inside from the center latch hole I cut.

Left side door trimmed to fit into the opening.

The plans have you cut an AN3 bolt to act as the hinge pin for the doors.  Its a good idea but I decided to use Ben's lathe to round off the head and trim it down a bit to fit in the pocket a little better.

Of course every RV-10 builder has to take a picture of the first time to door opens on its own hinges.  Those gull wing doors are just awesome!

Once the doors were trimmed to fit it was time to start putting the actuation mechanism in place.  This is the pocket that the handle sits in.

Trimming the Delrin guides to fit their pockets.

Center gear assembly installed and aft actuator rod attached to the rack piece that goes into the center latch.