Yesterday’s blog entry isn’t really complete because it doesn’t mention that prior to riveting I found that the doors still don’t fit. But I thought they did, I hear you say. Yes this fit until you put the rod on that lifts the door up. It turns out that when closed the rod is pushing the door forward and into the cabin frame.
So today started with removing the latch on the door and moving it down the door one hole, and drilling a new one. This allows the rod to fully close before the door is closed and therefore no longer pushes the door forward.
To help get the door flush up to the hinge, I enlarged some holes for an A5 rivet and then set to riveting. At some point I realised this was going to be the last (planned) rivet so I had to pose for a picture
(yes, it was pretty warm and windless in the hanagr).
And with that both doors were on.
It was a bit tricky to install but I also added the vent. It is tricky because it you have to squeeze the tabs to get inside the hole and it feels like it will break. I put them on the hot tarmac for a while to warm them up and in the end they weren’t as bad as they felt.
And with that, the plane is finished*. Ok, so I still need to wrap the underside of the fuselage (but I did caulk around the wing lights), and it isn’t finished until the FAA inspector or designated examiner says it is. But there is no more construction planned until I find something isn’t quite right.
Hope to do some taxi tests with the cowling on next weekend, check out the engine running a bit more. And in the meantime I will get the paperwork started.
I’ll leave you with some pictures
