4TH QTR 2004           •   •   • 
DATE HRS TTD ACTION IMAGES
10/01/04 1.8 770.5 Located the 210-79 secondary lap belt bushings per the drawing and welded them in. Test fitted the belts to the front seat. After finding two "test pilots" I discovered that building an airplane might cut down on my babysitter expenses....just strap the kids in and leave them upside down until we come home! Front seat secondary lap belt bushing welded No baby sitter needed tonight! Kids are firts to log inverted time in the 2wings
10/28/04 1.5 772.0 Drilled brackets made back on 9/3/04 for 10-32 nutplates. Drilled for nutplates
10/29/04 3.6 775.6 Located and welded in one bracket for the front seat bottom, and two for the front seat backrest. Located and drilled the holes for the 10-32 screws through the seat ribs, then countersunk them. Hardware to use will be MS24694-S68 Countersink Screws, A3235-020-24A Countersink Washer, AN970-3 Large Dia. Washer and MS20365-1032 Nylock Nut. Also note that I will not be adding brackets for holding the rear seat boards in. I assume the rear seat boards will be held in place by the pilot, and also they will need to be removable to inspect the battery area or fire suppression system under the rear seat. Bracket used to hold bottom of front seat in place Three screws keep front seat boards in place
Hardware used to secure ribs on seat boards Seat boards ready for varnish
11/03/04 2.8 774.8 Started building three front seat spacer pads out of 2" thick styrofoam and 1/8" plywood. The front seat of my fuselage is lower than standard to accept tall people, so I decided to make 3 spacers of various thickness, 2", 4" & 6" to accommodate shorter adults and kids even. The spacers will "lock" in place with four 5/16 dowels that insert into four holes drilled in the front seat bottom. Today I cut the foam and plywood, drilled holes and got one pad glued together with tightbond wood glue, since contact cement eats the styrofoam. The tightbond being water based makes the ply bow up away from the foam while I'm trying to glue it down. I'm not sure how well it will all stick together, tomorrow I may end up using epoxy to put them together, or maybe getting the other side of the ply wet too to even out the bowing while gluing. Plywood and foam cut for spacers
First spacer glued
11/04/04 2.0 776.8 Glued the other two front seat spacers together, one with two foam layers, the other with three layers. I ended up wetting the non-glue side just a little with a wet paintbrush, which really reduced the amount of warpage when I glued and then taped the wood/foam sandwiches together.  3 layer seat spacer glued and taped
11/05/04 0.6 777.4 Took the tape off the seat spacers and did some sanding on them. Front seat bottom without spacer Comparison of different spacer heights
11/18/04 1.0 778.4 Fiberglassed the 3-layer seat spacer with epoxy resin and cloth around the foam part. I used some generic epoxy (don't use polyester resin - it eats foam) from Tap Plastics that I had laying around. I don't know why the hardener was red, maybe it gets red when it gets old. That one is now ready for varnish. First spacer fiberglassed Spacer test fit after fiberglass
11/22/04 1.9 780.3 Fiberglassed the other two seat spacers. Last two spacer blocks glassed
11/24/04 2.6 782.9 Applied first coat of varnish to the seat boards, seat spacer blocks, and header tank board. First coat of varnish on the seat boards
12/02/04 2.5 785.4 Applied second coat of varnish to the seat boards, seat spacer blocks.
12/03/04 1.7 787.1 Cut a notch in the aft throttle/prop control plate to accommodate the rear instrument panel bracket on the left longeron. Then I deburred both plates and installed them along with the throttle/prop levers. I then measured the distance between the two hinge bolts to be 31.8". Using MS27976-4 Clevis Forks and 3/8" x .035 tubing, I cut the tubing to make slave rods match that 31.8" dimension.  Reference:  N393DG Pic#1 & N393DG pic#2  Rear plate notched to fit around instrument panel tab Throttle / prop slave rods test fit
12/04/04 0.6 787.7 Since the cad plating would contaminate the weld, I got some pool acid and removed it from the forks.   Dipping forks in pool acid to remove cad plating
12/07/04 1.0 788.7 Tack welded the forks on the rods while they were in position on the throttle & prop levers to ensure correct alignment of the forks. Then I pulled them off and welded them up. Tacking the forks in position
QTR TOTAL 23.6  
 4TH QTR 2004           •   •   •