Mount left rudder, install wingtip light hardpoints, oil access door | 12.20.2020 - 12.21.2020

Was on a pretty good streak of working on the plane every day for a while there, but took the 19th off to fly to Murfreesboro with my father in law to pick up our deer meat from the processor.

Rolling shutter always makes for nice pictures of the prop. Won't be a problem in our plane, since the prop's in a better spot. ;)

By the 20th, I had thought about the wingtip light mounting some more and come up with a plan.

Basically, I needed a way to mount a hardpoint from the inside, but didn't want to have to re-glass the tips after I was done. Besides, it seemed like there was not much in there to adhere the hardpoint to if I just did the traditional approach of: cut glass out, adhere in aluminum, and glass back over the aluminum.

I figured that I would remove enough material to slide in a rectangular hardpoint that had already been tapped, coated in adhesive, and screwed to the light. I would then tighten down the light while the adhesive cured, and then I'd have an aluminum hardpoint for the front screwhole on the light.

I'm not sure how I'm planning to address the rear light mounting hole, but for the first flight, I'm just planning on screwing directly into the fiberglass. I'll re-evaluate prior to painting. The front screw is the critical one, and I think a screw into the fiberglass will just work for the rear anyway.

Area where I'll dremel out. This will all be covered by the light itself after mounting, so it won't need repair after removal.

Rectangular hardpoints.

The long screws at this stage are so that I can manipulate the hardpoint while the light is attached. Kind of like a toggle bolt. These will be replaced with shorter aviation hardware once cured. Side note: Aveo says their holes will accommodate M3 screws (which would equate to a #4 imperial screw), but an M3 screw would be pretty lose. I checked the dimensions and then went with 6-32 hardware, as it fits with no issue. Also of note, 6-32 taps are way easier to find locally.

At his point, I attached the "toggles" to the lights and smeared adhesive on them. I manipulated them into place and tightened them down. The area immediately around the screw and the screw itself were loaded with grease prior to applying the adhesive to keep from adhering the threads permanently.

Light screwed down and taped to prevent any movement

These were removed the next day, and the result looks like this:

The larger hole will also make wiring easier.

After installing both hardpoints, I moved on to cutting out the oil access door. This is to allow you to check oil levels and add oil as part of your pre-flight. Emily and I had already found the rough outline of where the dipstick would end up, so the door just needed to accommodate that.

First I cut out the template:

Then marked the cowl with a marker for where I wanted to cut:

The smaller circle is where the dipstick hits.

This was then cut out with a dremel. After that, the inside of the cutout was duct taped and the whole cutout was centered in the hole and duct taped over.

Side note: 3M duct tape stinks. Like smells terrible compared to Duck brand.

The inside of the cowl was then prepped for glass and I glassed over the entire door with 5x BID. The center will be cut out to make a 1/4 - 1/2" flange for the door to sit against when closed.

I didn't realize until just now how much bigger than necessary I made those five plies. The fifth ply is 1" bigger to nicely cover and transition every thing, but all of them could have been like 2" smaller and saved a few ounces. :/

On the 21st, I did a rough clean up on the oil access door, but will wait for a full cure to cut/shape to final dimensions. The door also needs a hinge and a flush latch, which I have an order in for.

Door with mostly cleaned up flange.

Emily and I wrapped up the night by moving the wings back into their spot against the wall since everything that can be done to them prior to moving to the airport is now done. This was a pretty cool "victory".

Wings where they'll sit until we move to the airport. Yay!

We also cleaned the garage and then moved the plane into the middle to accommodate installing the canard to finish up the work there.

More to come, things are moving fast as we get closer and closer to "done"!

- Jeff