I ordered some wooden 3/8″ half round or 3/16″ radius half round if you will. I’m going to use it on the edges of the honeycomb of the showplanes canopy to give a nice rounded edge to all the honeycomb bulkheads. It will be covered in two + layers of glass as well. Trying to get a nice smooth curved edge along longish edges with flox/micro is tough and a LOT of sanding, which I would like to avoid. I would have liked balsa wood but could not find it, instead I bought hardwood which I could find and is used to make dollhouse trim and other dollhouse stuff I don’t know about. That stuff won’t show for a week. If they only knew what it was for…
Did a bunch of little stuff today and then decided to work on the baggage door. I had ordered the -1 (dash one) baggage door kit since my kit is old (circa 2000) and the baggage door ribs are not pre-punched, thinking this would work better, be more precise and offer a better fit. Well No, it isn’t better. The -1 ribs do not fit the contour of my baggage well very well at all, being more than 1/4″ off at one end when the other is aligned. The old non-prepunched ribs fit the contour perfectly, go figure. So I built the door on the bench with the old non-prepunched ribs. I clamped tightly at every rivet as I moved along, starting with the top skin and ending with the interior skin. It’s only clecoed together but it fits nicely at the rear and is off slightly at the front at the firewall by about the skin thickness. If the firewall is pushed back slightly the fit is much better. I’ll have to try the fit later with the top cowl on.
This is the door just laying in the opening. Nice aft fit with no downwards pressure. The hinge area will need some work as the forward section of the hinge area sticks out about 1/16″ too far.
Right side. Not as good but after hearing all the horror stories I think this is pretty good for not having the cowl on.
Just laying in place. Some straps and glue will fix this.
With Firewall pushed back and slight pressure downwards its good as gold. Not bad for building on the bench with non prepunched parts.
Ordered some cherry rivets for the front skin sides where access to the back of the rivet holes is blocked by my avionics shelf. These are pricey. Bought two bags of 10 ea.
