I’ve actually been working on the plane recently. What I’ve not been doing is a good job of keeping up with this blog. I’m going to post my drafts even if they are incomplete.

Trying to get back into the swing of things and spend some time at the airport. I continued my previous work on the instrument panel cover. After applying a filet of micro balloons I fitted the actual instrument panel. In the first photo you can see how much I decided I needed to trim to get the desired lines. Additionally, the left side will require a little more fiber glass while the right side is perfect depth.

Here are the two sides after each has been trimmed. You’ll also note that the end extensions I made have been put in place and cleaned up.

Using much the same technique as the canopy reinforcement rails and bulkhead stiffeners, I laid some fiberglass over the micro balloon filet.

After this was complete, I let the epoxy cure and turned my attention back to the instruction manual. Since I have the instrument panel laying up – I skipped drilling the locking mechanism holes in the forward instrument panel and the after bulkhead. Instead I turned my attention to the C806fb Latch pin anchor material. Bryan’s instructions state to cut the piece to make a 2.5 inch piece and a 4 inch piece, but the part is only 6 inches, so its off by half an inch. Taking a quick look at the application – I decided there was plenty of material and I shaved a quarter inch off of each and called it a day.

Here are the resulting pieces.

My hiatus from the hangar and the build has gone far too long. Yesterday was the 5th Annual Mid-Atlantic Gathering of RVs which means this build has gone on for 5 years and I’m probably only half way. I’ve basically lost almost the entire last year.

Today I had two goals. First, and foremost clean up the shop and figure out where I’m at. Second, do some work on the project. Any work. As it is, I got the first one soundly done, and I was able to accomplish a few tasks as well.

After the obligatory cleaning was complete, I set about filling the corners of the instrument panel top cover in. I taped the area to prevent any leaking epoxy going into places I didn’t want it.

Next I made some foam backing to build the fiberglass against.

I used fiberglass to cover each corner and then when that set, I made some basic fillets using micro balloons and epoxy.

I also made some flox to hold the front canopy opening attachment in place. I scuffed the part first to create a good adhesion surface.

Finally I used some carbon fiber on the center rib. Dan Horton made this recommendation as the modulus of carbon fiber is better suited for this area than fiber glass. He has seen some deformation on hot days due to the strength of the gas strut and recommended this as a good solution. We’ll see how it turns out.

Here it is installed!

Now that many of my house projects are under some semblance of control, I hope to really start getting back to the hangar.