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Rudder covered, strip post lights... 09/07/03 - Today I covered the rudder and stripped out the 10 post lights I purchased last week. I'm planning to repaint them black to match the instruments. Not a lot to show today, except the rudder is covered with a single piece of fabric instead of a topside and bottom side with the seam occurring along the forward spar which is connected by hinges to the vertical stabilizer. Covering with a single section of fabric presented a bit of a challenge, but yesterday's RECOVERING JOB seemed to prepare me well enough for the rudder today and I think it turned out pretty nice. Here I have laid out the fabric section in preparation for a loose trim to size:
As I said earlier, it was a bit of a challenge and I forgot to take any progress shots until I had wrestled the fabric on straight (here, before any ironing):
And here after passes at 200, 300 and 350° with the iron:
After a short visit from my son, I cleaned the irons and my scissors then stripped out the Whelen post lights I purchased last week. The lights came from a King Air (probably salvaged, since the guy has sold a double handful of sets of 10 of these on eBay the past month or so) and are more or less putty colored, demanding a new paint job, but for $7.30 each (after replacing the lamps with 14v units) I can do a little painting! Now that I have the empennage surfaces covered, I need to run the rib rivets, tapes and edge tapes then I guess it'll be time to move on to do the ailerons and flaps. I'm hoping to receive a set of stands by the end of the month that'll allow me to do the fuse and wings by myself. Rans rents these for a very reasonable fee, so I ordered a set last Friday from Steve in Parts. I had planned to build the stands last winter, but haven't gotten around to that YET and since I'm pretty sure I don't trust my welding abilities to hold something as critical as the wings and fuselage, I decided to rent instead! ;^) More updates soon... |
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Last Update: 09/07/2003 |
