Nose and nose gear - part 22

Strut cover and bottom nose foam installation (9.4 hrs)

One item that I had left unfinished was the foam piece directly in front of the nose gear hinge. In order to have easier access, I should have installed/glassed it before I closed up NG30 with the F6 bulkhead, but it worked out anyway.

Scuffing up fiberglass and dried up micro

Preventing a mess from happening beats having to clean it up anyday

Glassing action

Trimmed a bit long (for now) after cure

At full extension

Because I had split the strut cover (SC) into three pieces, then put it back together with a splice, I was left with a slight depression where the gap used to be, so I filled it out with flox, peel-plied it, cured it and sanded it.

Joint between old and new glass

The depressions were filled with flox and peel plied over

With SC ready for testing, I reinstalled the electric actuator in the nose compartment, and looked for interferences. I found them two. 

Actuator colliding with strut cover

The process for removing them is very straight forward, just sand them until they disappear, but it is very tedious because it involves going back and forth between sanding and fitting many times. That’s what I get for building a plane from plans, instead of buying a perfectly machined airplane kit.

So, I thought I would film the process to give you an idea of what it’s like.

A day in the life

After going back and forth a bunch of times, I was able to achieve a satisfactorily fit, that still minimized air infiltrations.

Interferences removed

The actuator travels unimpeded now

Then I floxed SC in position.

Usual stuff here, a bit of epoxy...

... on all mating surfaces...

... then mix some flox...

... until it's like soft butter...

... then apply it to the joint...

... mate the two parts...

... add some gravity...

... and fast forward 24 hours.

The next day I worked on closing up the last three remaining holes in the bottom of the nose. I cut three foam plugs, microed them them in place, and weighted them down overnight.

Not a perfect fit, but still acceptable.

Another look at the plugs

This level of protection turned out to be an overkill, since there was no sagging of the micro.

Micro applied to foam after slurrying it, and wetting the glassed surfaces with pure epoxy.

Gravity to the rescue once again

Next day