Drilling Cabing Halves
07/18/11 22:26 Filed in: All
Spotty progress due to work travel. Two trips to Mexico and one to California. Enough excuses - I tweaked the seatpan mounts as much as I could to get the body to fit better. The two rearmost pre-drilled holes on the left side won’t work no matter what I do, though, so they have been repositioned about an inch forward. The existing holes will be filled.
Body halves drilled all around. Straps, cleco clamps, and an extra pair of hands helps here a lot There are really no straight lines or easy reference points to tell whether it’s square and symmetric. Lots of fitting, standing back and eyeballing, then tweaking to make it as square as possible. About 14 or 15 screws from the front to the seatpan top curve. I’ll shim and drill the very top of the seatpan curve once the windscreen is in place.
Rear of the body. The cutouts don’t match exactly, but that’s OK. I’ll trim them in place.
I found some green felt that is a very good match to the frame powder coat color. I will use some spray adhesive and use that on the body shell interior when I get to that point.
Body halves drilled all around. Straps, cleco clamps, and an extra pair of hands helps here a lot There are really no straight lines or easy reference points to tell whether it’s square and symmetric. Lots of fitting, standing back and eyeballing, then tweaking to make it as square as possible. About 14 or 15 screws from the front to the seatpan top curve. I’ll shim and drill the very top of the seatpan curve once the windscreen is in place.
Rear of the body. The cutouts don’t match exactly, but that’s OK. I’ll trim them in place.
I found some green felt that is a very good match to the frame powder coat color. I will use some spray adhesive and use that on the body shell interior when I get to that point.
First Cabin Fit
06/21/11 22:21 Filed in: All
First fitting of the body halves. Of course they had to come off and on about a half dozen times to fine tune the cutouts around the body tubes. The powder coat on the body tubes got fairly scratched up in a few places before I had them all taped up to protect them, I’ll have to get some touch up paint of the same color.
The fit is pretty poor. I think my seatpan sits forward perhaps too much which makes the vertical holes on the sides impossible to line up on the left side without really deforming the seatpan. I may have to pull it all apart and redo the seat pan mounts so everything fits more cleanly. Darn. I thought this was going to be an easy bit.
Anyway, it really looks like a flying machine with the body attached and I had to strongly resist the urge to climb in, make airplane noises, and daydream. The frame came powder coated dark green. I had been thinking dark yellow for the body, but perhaps a very stark white would work with polished skids and blades and grey Zolotone on the interior. Too soon??