10 Hours, 14 June 2013
I decided I would finish up the windows the best I could for flying and deal with the fine details after flying was started. My wife and I have decided to paint in about 1 year or less so I will concentrate on the fine details of the windows at a later date.
2 hours, 1 June 2014
I installed the doors and bolted on the gas struts. I also put on the lower door interior fiberglass covers and screwed them into place. I am holding off adding the final interior parts since I don’t want to scratch them while I am still working on the aircraft interior.
8 hours, 29 May 2014
I received the Cee Bailey’s windows on Thursday 29th, 2014. What a great product. Very minimal sanding required to fit all the window recesses. I used the LORD adhesive sold by Aerosport’s – Geoff. I already had the applicator gun. Other than the prep work for fitting and sanding the windows then tapping the all the process went very easy. I am very disappointed in my lack of skills when it comes to working with the adhesive and sticking the windows in. Overall the windows look good and are installed. The interior sides of the windows are finished. The outside of the windows will take some time to complete.
The front wind screen fairing is another story. Again I am a little disappointed with my skill set on this also. Needless to stay there is lots of sanding involved. I really screwed up on where I placed the upper fiberglass fairing tape line. I wanted the line to be as low as possible and it turns out I have it about two inches to high. I am already a short persons and fear this will come back to bit me in the rear when I cant see over the window properly. the main issue is that I already sanded the window.. oh well.
May 22, 2014, 3 hours
I removed the right door to start working on the small cover panel for over the door mechanical mechanism. This will help hide the ugly holes in the door. I laid up two layers of fiberglass on the door. Will trim it out today hopefully and start smoothing out the interior door surface for paint.
I kept working with the overhead fiberglass with smoothing it out filling the pin holes and trying to make it look decent. Lots of dust and hard work. I should have done this prior to putting on the cabin top but I really didnt know what I wanted to do at that time.
May 18, 2014. 8 hours
The horrible fiberglass work continues…. I have been working on the left door trying to finish it before I install the window. I had smoothed out the inside door the best I could with UV Smooth Prime and then a Dupli-Color primer filler (FP101 Grey Filler). This actually worked well as I didn’t expect it to. I then followed it with Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel Gloss White (DA1670) and then a Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel (Crystal Clear Coat DA1692).
Prior to all the painting I closed out the hinge attach points. We plan to cover the lower panel that covers the access into the door mechanism with some material yet to be picked out.
December 27-28th, I continued to work on fitting the McMaster door seal to the door openings. I cut a piece of the seal and put epoxy mixture inside of it and pushed it into place. I allowed this to cure and then continued with the remaining portion of the doors after pulling the seal off and cleaning up the rough excess epoxy. This method allowed a nice holding edge to be formed for the seal so hopefully it won’t slip off later.
I also worked on the tunnel and added the access panel to the left side. I have decided to put one of the PC680 batteries in the tunnel since the air conditioning unit is behind the luggage bulk head. It has been discussed before about the CG issues of the RV10. With weight of the AC unit and the oxygen equipment in the back. It is highly likely I will encounter a CG issue before I reach gross weight so the batteries need to be moved forward. If it is determined that a battery needs to be moved aft, the original battery location is reserved for exactly this type of scenario. Either way we should be able to cover the CG issue once the aircraft is totally built out. There will be a PC680 mounted on the firewall also.
Consideration needs to be given to the fact that the correct choice of prop needs to be made to help control the total weight and CG requirements. Either the Hartzel or MT 3 bladed prop will be my choice.
Spent 7 hours working mostly all the above mentioned work.
December 9th I started the day but sanding the inner door seal to the proper height for the McMaster Carr door seal to fit properly. Various sanding techniques were required to lower the inner ridge of the door opening. This took about 6 hours.
Mounted the hydraulic door struts to both doors. I had to modify the Bansbach strut attachment point to be slightly more narrow to attach to the PlaneAround cabin top strut bracket that is made for the after market door seal. 5 hours.
Drilled the PlaneAround center door locking block into the fuselage. This is the center latch thta helps pull in the center of the door. This is the after market latch mechanism solution for the SB that Vans Issued. I had to modify the center blocks to lower their height so the shaft would clear them. 2 hours.
December 8th. Spent about another 10 hours working to fit the doors to the cabin top. Much guess work seemed to be needed to get the proper fit of the door into cabin top opening. Lots of sanding then fitting, then sanding.
Sill more work required on the doors. Spent 4 hours working the mechanism on the right door. I’m getting it very near where I want it and hopefully a couple more hours I will have it completed.
RV10 Building Adventure