New Hanger!

Just before leaving for Oshkosh, I was able to move into a full T hanger. Ironicaly, This is the first hanger I ever saw at the airport. When I first saw a Vari-Ez at the airport and stopped to learn about EAA, it was parked in this hanger.

The Former occupant was kind enough to let me borrow his golf cart and trailer to move, so the move went quickly. Having the room to organize and not have to move tables and boxes around constantly has allready proven to be very helpful.

Covering bottom of HS

Tonight, I covered the other side of the HS. Took about 2 hours in
total. I used the Mark Langford method of applying fiberglass. I
marked an outline on a piece of 4 mill plastic of the size and shape
the fiberglass needed to be. Then I cut a piece of peel ply a bit
oversized as well as the fiberglass.

Not wet put the fiberglass on the plastic. The outline on the plastic
helps ensure you have the right shape when you are done. If you don't
do this, your fiberglass may get distorted and not dit as you expected.

You can then peel the plastic off carefully and adjust and add peel ply.

Bell cranks

On this Saturday, we stood the fuselage up vertical so that it would
be easierto drill the aluminum for the bell cranks. The bell cranks
mounted up fine, but we had to redrill the rear WAFs on the passenger
side and those are not ready for the bell crank installation.

Control sticks

I'm a little behind in updating the blog, so the next few entries
comprise the majority of july's work

The control sticks were created. The bottom of the sticks were
drilled with a jig to allow clearance for the AN fittings from the
aileron torque tube and the cable, then while still in the jig, the
hole where the AN fitting attach is drilled so the tube maintains it's
shape

Micro top side of seat

I got to the airport early for my cub lesson, so I micro'd the top
side ot the seat. I shoul be able to fiberglass th top side tis
weekend if I have enough fiberglass

Forming the seat

As we looked at what we wanted to accomplish this summer, it seems one
thing kept leading to anoher thing that had to be done first. To
cover the wing, the tanks have to be done and the brake lines need to
be installed. To install the brake lines, I need to install the
pedals. To install the pedals, I need to be able to sit on the seat
and install the pedals at the right distance. This brought us to the
seat.

We made a few foam ribs to roughly the shape we thought the seat
needed to be and sat on them I the plane. The position seemed good,
so we
Ade more ribs and formed the top ofthe seat from 1/2" foam. We
thought that using liquid nail to adhear the ribs and the seat top
would be a good quick solution. Wrong. It took a whole day to dry.
Here is the seat ready to be trimmed and covered with fiberglass.
Most. Of the rib will be cut away when the bottom is fiberglassed.

Mockup gas tank and superfill.

Started making a mockup gas tank out of cheap flashing metal from home
depot. We quickly discovered how terrific it would be to have a metal
brake! Only the botom half is complete and there are no provisions
for filling yet.

We also put superfill On one side of the HS. It took more than I
thought I might. To cover the bottom of one half of the HS i took
half of a $40 container. It sure looks like it's gong to lead to a
real nice finish. Keep reading for the sanding report soon.