Cowling - Day 3

TLDR

• Worked on the bottom cowling
• Drilled pilot holes for the camlocs
• Painted the stiffener strip

Details

Bottom Cowling

For most of the day, I cut and sanded the bottom cowling. It’ the same process as the top cowling, except it’s a little harder when fitting because I had to use a sawhorse to hold the part in place when fitting/clecoing it to the top cowling. So it’s a bit more labor intense each time I took it off and put it back on.

By lunch time, I pretty much got the bottom cowling cut and fitted.

Verifying Front Cowling Gap

After fitting the bottom cowling, I did another measurement with caliper on the front cowling gap. This time I got 5mm - 7mm gaps all around. It’s still within the range specified by Sling and Airmaster.

Camloc Pilit Holes

I used a hole finder between each pre-drilled camloc hole on the airframe and the cowing, and drilled 3.2mm holes on the composite part. After drilling the holes, I used a cleco with a home-made washer to hold the cowling and the airframe together.

The home-made washer is just a small piece of Aluminum, with a 3.2mm hole on it.

I cut this strip to 8-9 pieces of little squares and drilled a hole on them, and use them to hold the cleco so the cowling is clamped to the airframe

Stiffener Strip Painting

Since the stiffener will likely go through a lot of wear and tear in the future, I dicided to prime and paint it for an extra layer of protection.

I used the films left over from window painting and carefully covered the engine and skin near the the stiffener strip. Then I used a rattle can spray primer/paint on the stiffener.