June 2002

6/20/2002 - 6/30/2002: Over these days I have been working on the pitot tube installation, and I have been working on the landing gear. I have started working on the landing gear to make it easy to move the fuselage around in the garage.

6/19/2002: Jury Duty!!! I pulled Chapter 8 (Flaps) out of the binder and took it with me, so I could read over it in my "free time". It did turn out to be a worthwhile way to make use of the dead time throughout the day, and I felt like I was doing at last something for the project.

6/17/2002 - 6/18/2002: I finished the last details for the fuel vent line in the left wing, and as well as the last details for the fuel probe in the right wing. The only tasks remaining for Chapter 7 include, mounting the pitot tube, installing the wing Nav antenna (which I have not decided what I will install), and fitting the bottom wing skins for both wings. Fitting the bottom wing skins requires the wing cradles, and I am on the verge of completing them too.

6/14/2002 - 6/16/2002: No work has been done on the project over these 3 days. Saturday I attended the EAA Southwest Regional Fly-In Board Meeting in New Braunfels, Tx (BAZ), and visited friends and family in Austin. Sunday was Father's Day. T-hangers at BAZ are renting for $160 per month, but there are 50 on the waiting list. Amazing... BAZ is one nice airport. I also visited the San Marcos airport (HYI). I spent some time visiting with an RV-4 pilot, and a Velocity pilot that was just getting ready to start on hour 6 of his initial test time.

6/13/2002: I completed bonding and glassing in the fuel vent line for the left wing. All that remains for completing this vent line is to seal around the end of the vent line that enters the outboard rib of the fuel tank. I should be able to complete that step within 30 minutes. Jim Morris (from EAA Chapter 12) came over to help, and I showed him the process of glassing with epoxy in an aircraft. Jim actually is an A&P, but had limited composite experience. We went through the whole process of bonding the vent line in with Hysol 9339, and glassing over the the center of the fuel line between rib pairs in the wing. The next morning (Friday 6/14), all I had to do was a little touchup sanding around the fiberglass edges. The hard part of the evening was that the temperatures were pretty hot for doing glassing work (95 degrees to 99 degrees). With the Hysol 9339, there really was not a problem. The heat may have shortened the pot life, but we still had much more than we needed for such a small job. Dealing with the Jeffco 1307-LV with the fast hardener was an entirely different story. We just made a separate batch of epoxy for each glass lay-up that was done between the ribs. I had the epoxy pump inside in the air conditioning, so the epoxy started cool. I mixed the resin, poured off a small part for mixing with micro. Then I put micro around the vent tube where the next lay-up would go, and Jim worked on wetting out and squeezing out the 2 BID patch that I would then lay over the vent line. We had no exotherm problems with the laminating resin for the 2 BID, but the epoxy/micro batches just gave me enough time to put what I needed in place before what was left in the cup started to go off. It sure made me appreciate the temperatures I have working in the mornings.

Also, when I removed the peel ply from the last glass patch I had put in place over the vent line in the right wing, I discovered that the peel ply had cause the 2 BID to separate from the epoxy/micro fillet I had created under the fuel vent line. This caused a long narrow bubble that was about 3/4 inch long, and about 3/16 inch wide. Given the location, and the purpose of the 2 BID patch, I figured that fixing this might be optional. However, I had come up with an idea for filling bubbles trapped under cured BID that I wanted to try. This would be a good test case. I took a 1 cc syringe (the type typically used for allergy shots), and completely cut off the needle end. Then I drilled a 1/16 inch hole at the extreme ends of the bubble. One hole would be for injecting in epoxy/micro, the other to allow air to escape. I mixed a fairly thin batch of epoxy/micro and drew the mixture into the syringe. Then I injected it into one of the holes. The void filled right up with epoxy/micro, and then came out of the vent hole. I then wiped away the excess epoxy/micro from the outer surface, and was done. It seemed to work great.

6/12/2002: I finished glassing over the fuel vent line in the right wing. During the evening, I worked some more on the wing cradles, sanding the airfoil edge on the inside of the top and bottom of 3 or the 4 wing cradles. All I have to do now is cut one more wing cradle (top & bottom) to finish. I would have gotten that done, but I ran out of spray on adhesive. I will hopefully get a can this weekend.

6/10/2002 - 6/11/2002: I bonded the fuel vent line in the right wing with Hysol 9339., and did most of the work for glassing in the fuel vent line in the right wing.

6/9/2002: [Details to be added.]

6/8/2002: [Details to be added.]

6/7/2002: [Details to be added.] Glassed over the inboard end of the fuel probe ports for the left wing. This is the port that is aluminum and is threaded on the inside. The base of the fuel probe screws into this port, and it holds the probe in place. I used modeling clay to protect the threads. I did not fill the entire port with clay. I just covered the inside wall of the port with about 1/8 inch of clay. While the BID was still green, I cut away the BID that covered the hole. Once the BID was cured, I really did not have to do much more but a little sanding to smooth the edge that I had cut with an X-Acto knife.

6/6/2002: [Details to be added.] I completed bonding in the left wing fuel probe. This went so much quicker this time.

6/5/2002: [Details to be added.] Cut all of the holes for the fuel probe for the right wing. Abraded the nylon parts that will be bonded inside the ribs for the fuel probe.

6/4/2002: [Details to be added.] Cutting wing cradles.

6/1/2002 - 6/3/2002: [Details to be added.] Installed left wing fuel probe. Just need to glass around the aluminum fuel probe mount on the inboard rib BL 27.5.

Resumed cutting the wing cradles.

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