1 hr. misc.

Misc. goodies have been arriving the past few days...

Including a 2' x 4' x .025" sheet of 6061-T6 for making brackets for the sub-panel which will hold my remote boxes.

Found the parts mentioned by Peter Calley...

But sadly one of my parts is completely unpunched... :-(

Disassembled the parts on the throttle (to do the fix as again mentioned by Peter), but I saw that his bolt had a hole in it and mine did not.  Time to check the instructions to see if I used the wrong part...

Nope, I used the part as described in the instructions: AN3-4A.  Silly me for following the instructions...

The next page of the instructions seem to show a bolt with a hole, but no mention is made of it.

Put together my grease gun, extension and needle nose.  Ready to grease!

I have an automatic stripper, but I haven't been impressed, so I bought the tool that the pros use.  This should make it much easier to strip precisely.

1 hr. working on the rear interior skin fitting.

You can see that the rear flange of the side skin is too tall.  I made a mark on the rib and measured what the height needs to be.  A few pictures down and I mention what that length is...

Cut down and it fits perfectly!

I'll put some edge grommet there...

Measuring from the top to the bottom it was 10.25 inches (cutting off the bottom).  Same cut on the left side was also perfect as you can see.

This cover goes here?  Seems a bit awkward...  I assume this is attached with screws into rivnuts.

3 hrs. installing the left side front interior skin.

Both sides of the front interior skins are done!  The left side was easier, though I did still have to match drill the bottom holes.  The rear skins I'm just test fitting now as they're installed later.
Where did other people install the OAT probe in the NACA duct?  I saw on a factory plane it was on the left duct inserted in the top surface of it, down into the duct.  Other people?

Closer view (of the right side...).

What goes in that large hole on the front top of the luggage floor?  Nutplate?  Is this how the rear seat gets attached?

4 hrs. working on the interior skins and 1 hr cleaning up the shop.

Cleco'ing the top two rows so I can match drill the lower row and bottom holes.

Bottom row drilled and cleco'ed so I can match drill the bottom.

Drill, drill drill...

And it comes off to clean up...

Time to put on the soundproofing that came with the kit.

Yes, messy, no, I don't care.  It won't be seen, so this is fine.

Cleco'ed and ready to rivet!

And she's done!

I had trimmed the rear interior skin and the fit is much better.  Still a little here-and-there though.  NOTE: As I understand it, the rear interior skins do not go on until the canopy is on.  Correct me if I'm wrong!

The left side fits better, though I think it will still require match drilling on the bottom.  I'll find out tomorrow when I continue.  I primed this and the rear left side interior skin today after this test fit.

The shop had really become messy lately, so I went on a rampage of obsessive cleaning.  Vacuuming and organizing.  I feel much better. ;-)

2 hrs. on interior skins.

So, I heard back from the factory regarding how to deal with the misalignment.  Just cleco as much of the holes on the side as possible and match drill the rest.  The bottom holes don't come close and the upper row is off too.  Since this will all get covered up, it's no problem.  The message: Be bold, just get it in there.

Some material will need to be clipped off in the corner because it would block my ability to put in that corner wing bolt.

I'll take off as marked.  It seems to get covered up by the cover that fits in front of the spar, so it's fine.

The factory said the same here: Do what's necessary to make it fit.  So, there were a few areas that need clipping so it can lay flat.

I realized the other day that these eyebolts will need greasing and you do that though a tiny port on the side of the eyebolt.  So, I wondered if I had installed them with that facing up...  Well, it turns out I batted .500...  I got depressed for a minute because I assumed I'd have to completely un-bolt them...

But, then I realized I didn't need to do that!  I can just unscrew the pushrod from the eyebolt and flip it over to grease it.  :-)

Despite thunderstorms passing nearby I managed to prime the right side interior skins.  Once I do the left side over the weekend, I think that will be it for parts that I'll prime for my aircraft.  I think I'll play that catchy tune "Happy." ;-)

This is the soundproofing that came with the kit.  Not nearly as good as the stuff I used up to now, but as a second layer it'll do.

Well, I was going to work on the plane tonight, but I wasn't feeling 100% today, so instead I did several updates to the fuselage build order page based on some good feedback I got.  I've added a date to the top of the page so you'll know when it was last updated.

I will add some more to the end of the list tomorrow.

I'm waiting on some answers from the factory, so I figured I'd take the time to create some useful pages.

First I added a new photos page, this one for panel-related photos and these photos come to us courtesy of Bob Zaleski whose panel is very similar to mine.  It's up there under Factory Photos (even though these are not factory photos).  Thanks Bob!!

Also, I've added a page of my recommendations for the order of build of the fuselage (in the "Other Stuff" menu).  There are some things that should be done early in that assembly that the manual doesn't mention, so I thought it's better to put that info in one place then everyone trying to figure it out themselves by reading half a dozen blogs.  Current Sling builders: Please review my steps and if you see something that is wrong or missing, please let me know and I will fix it ASAP.  Thanks in advance!

The list is not done yet (partially because I haven't gotten there yet).