Ch 25 Finishing

Date:  08-29-2024

Number of Hours:  52

Manual Reference:  25

Oh how I hate sanding. The stick of pain was never my friend. Yes that’s a long sanding stick with sandpaper glued or taped to it. Not whatever you were thinking! I put off prepping and painting the cowls until now in case I had to modify them.

I have spent a ton of time tweaking the fit and putting this job off. Now it must be done or I’m pretty sure I’ll be running around in bare carbon and UV will damage that. I may still have to modify these cowls if it doesn’t cool by making the scoops wider. I wish I’d done this earlier but I didn’t want to risk doing it twice. I’ve run out of time to test and then paint. So here we go if I have to repaint… so be it.

First up was a pretty gross fill around those modifications to the bottom of the cowls I did a while back to better fit the radiators. The scoop joins also needed a fill. I probably should have placed those scoops further forward. I definitely needed to join them at the fuselage so they could be permanent to the radiators. That’s a huge job if I ever go ahead with it.

My oil and coolant door needed a final fit. This was quite a few cure cycles for what ended up a very small amount of filler.

Lots and lots of hand sanding just to get a start on the cowl insides.

More initial sanding before the first fill.

This is the high build primer I’m using.

This is the top coat what was used for the rest of the plane. Apparently it has a long flash time unlike most automotive two packs. Harder to spray but a better result in the hands of an expert.

Given most of this primer is going to be sanded off I have gone for the roller. Not nearly as messy as spraying.

You’d think this is it and I’m done? Nope a good two more weeks of filling, sanding and filling to go.

Here’s a fill before the sanding. The idea is to get every pin hole and little deformity smooth.

After a bunch of hand sanding I’m through to the carbon in a lot of places as expected.

Someone smarter than me would have painted the spinner months ago. I need the prop off for this and it is now delaying taxi testing which I could start with cowls off. Prop off and on again is not a great idea. There is always a risk of galling the threads of the prop extension so best to do this as little as possible.

More filling.

More sanding.

More sanding. OK, the insides do not need to be very good. We are just going to spray these with a cheaper two pack white and keep the good stuff for then outsides. I’m going for insides white mainly so I can easily spot oil and coolant leaks. If its painted I have a better shot of keeping it clean too. Raw carbon just soaks up oil and grime.

Here’s the spinner and ‘lampshade’ combo. When I get a new prop these will probably be redundant but they will be in use for a while yet.

I would have spent 3 or 4 days at least just on these intersections that nobody will see. It is super hard to fill and sand in there. I had to make them better than they were but it is less fun than other things in life.

Here’s the bottom pretty much done, or so I thought. All the parts have now gone off to a painter for final prep and paint. She has only just started doing some spray work on the side to her normal job which is unrelated. In fact she has just done her own car and frankly the job was amazing. Some people have very high standards and the skills and talent to match.

It seems my work was not acceptable and she has re-sanded and re-primed to a much higher level. My two weeks of work is not waisted although I probably could or should have done better. The top cowl and spinner need to look good, the bottom and insides are much less important. I’m confident of a job to match the rest of the plane or better.  Certainly better spray painting than I could ever do.

Here they are. a couple of weeks later.  She put in 23 hours mainly fixing up my prep work to HER standards. Then better spray painting than the rest of the plane despite this top coat being done by a guy who paints jets for a living! This was her second project.

It took me a good days work to get the door fitting. I hadn’t left enough of a gap for the thickness of paint. Lesson learnt.

I asked that all the attention should go on the top cowl as you hardly see the bottom. Its still really good.

Looks at the sharpness of the shine, this is unpolished and straight off the gun. No I am not telling you who this person, on her second painting job with a spray gun is. If I ever want anything else done, I don’t think she should be busy with your jobs 😉

Date:  08-15-2024

Number of Hours:  1

Manual Reference:  25

This aircraft began its journey December 1st 2011. On this day 15th of August, 2024 it officially became an aeroplane.

This is the Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) It goes in the logbook and a copy get carried in the airplane at all times. The paperwork says 17 of August, That’s to cover paying the bill on time, which I did very gratefully on the 15th anyway.

Condition 14 is a wonderful and unexpected gift. I had expected to have to pull the wings off and transport the plane to the test area airfield nearly 2 hours away by truck. I have been given permission to fly from Moorabbin after a brief test period to continue the main program at what will be my new Leongatha (YLED) base.

I have also been given a 25 hour minimum testing period. It may take longer but I will not be bound by the 40 hour period often given.

This has been 12 years 8 months and change to get from project to airplane. Of course I still have a few things to do before taxi tests and first flight. I hope to be airborne in VH-XEZ late next month.

Date:  07-10-2024

Number of Hours:  3

Manual Reference:  25

Importantly, stick and throttle functions need to be labeled just like instrument panel items. There are a few legal requirements for placards that I’ll show here as well.

Throttle:

TOGA – takeoff/go around This sequences the Garmin GPS that the intended landing is now going to point to the missed approach. If the auto pilot is on, that of course follows its direction for the missed. The small white button is on the front of the throttle, just right of the picture.

LANDING BRAKE – this has three positions, up, down and it can be paused in its travel for a partial open brake. Indications are on the G3X. The switch operates a linear actuator that opens and closes the brake. On the plans version of a Long-EZ, this is mechanical. There is also an auto function, if the brake is down but I engage full throttle, it will come up and close. The switch then needs to be cycled to go back to normal operations.

LO HI LND LIGHT – the front landing light has a boost where it drains a few more amps but gets brighter. I’d use this for night landing but just the low setting during the day if I want a recognition light.

COM 2 FLIP FLOP AUD.PLAY BACK – Com2 is the G3X com while my main one is on the GTN750. This red toggle has a center and two positions. Pull back and I get the flip/flop on the com. Push forward and it ties in with the audio panel and I can use it to repeat a radio transmission I’ve just received. I don’t know how this will work in practice.

PPT – Push to talk. That’s the small white switch on the raised portion at the bottom of the picture. It doesn’t have a label. I also have one on the stick. The idea is that given I’m right handed if I’m writing down a clearance I can use my left hand for transmitting.

POINT LIGHT  This is the 4 way hat top switch at the front of the throttle. This controls the angle of the headlight, up, down, left and right. The light sits on a car mirror mechanism so its easy to relate to what it does,

In a Long-EZ the approach can be quite flat so you’d want the light pointing down towards the runway. Once you land you’d want it pointed more level so that you can see the runway turnoffs and taxiways. In fact, the side to side idea is also for those turnoffs. Night is challenging at unfamiliar airports where all you have are often little lights on the runway and taxiway to guide you and not a lot else.

The white button is the TOGA

STICK

TRIM – This is the 4 way hat top switch on the top. It controls elevator trim up and down and aileron trim left to right. The elevator trim being critical given I have no mechanical trim. This is run with a linear actuator and goes through the Garmin system as well as a part of the Auto pilot system.

I have safeguards in place and it will be tested extensively to ensure I can overcome forces manually should anything go wrong. I do have trim runaway protection but nothing is perfect.

A/P DISC – The RED button. Disconnects the autopilot. Pretty important.

I think if you hold it down you can also disconnect the auto function where even with the AP off, if the Garmin doesn’t like what the plane is doing it will set things back on the straight and level.

INTELI VOICE – This is the green button. Garmin supports voice commands. I press this button and then tell things what to do. It has a limited vocabulary and I have to learn what is useful, if anything.

COM1 FLIP FLOP – This is the light blue button on the left side of the stick and is a simple frequency flip flop for the GTN750 radio. It will get plenty of use between say Melb Center and a CTAF if thats how I set them.

PPT – Push to Talk. A big red button you can see looking down. On the left side in the next photo. Like pulling the trigger to communicate. No, not forward guns or the missile drop.

COM1 CH UP/DN – This is the silver momentary toggle switch. It moves presets on the GTN750 radio up or down.

I don’t know how much I’ll use this. It was too much work to make this function do something else when we revisited it after a couple of years. In the meantime Garmin software updates had made new options possible.

FUSES

Old school.

There are electronic fuses via the VPX system and through the G3X but these are the traditional Klixon, relating to engine critical functions, pitch trim and the auto pilot. They are reset-able and available to pull if I ever need to inflight.

While we are at it, a late addition to the controls:
ALT AIR This operates a slide door opening in the induction pipe, after the air filter in case it is ever blocked so that the engine can get emergency air. Maybe ice, a messy, bird strike or a forgetful pilot leaving the intake air cover on would be situations where this might be used.

AUX WT PUMP I have two coolant (water) pumps plumbed in series. One is always on with the engine power and is speed controlled via a temperature sensor. The other is a back up for coolant boost or if the first pump fails.

Seat Heaters The two switches are for the front and back seat heaters. They have a hi and low setting. The left one is for PIC the right for PAX.

The other two switches are extras, doing nothing and yet to be assigned.

Here is the required EXPERIMENTAL declaration.

The CASA required passenger warning placard. I like to think my standards are even higher than those required for a certified plane. I can think what I like, CASA still requires the warning.

Here’s the ‘data plate’. While other have more information, the regs just require these three items. The serial number is DB001, a bit hard to see in the photo. The steel rego placard is no longer required but I liked it and someone made me one so I added it.

 

Date:  01-22-2023

Number of Hours:  20

Manual Reference:  25

Today the registration marking were applied to the plane. VH-XEZ. This has taken a mammoth amount of time. In part getting the ‘mark’ reserved and then registered and navigating the various bureaucracies to determine the legality.  I spent long hours playing with designs and knocking out ideas that I then printed and tried on the plane. Its a good thing I don’t do it for a living.

There is an ADIZ around the USA. That’s Air Defense Identification Zone. All aircraft are required to have 12″ high registration marks. These can be temporary or permanent. No exceptions. How to make this look OK on such a small airplane? The Australian requirement is a lot smaller for Experimental Category aircraft. As I’ve gone big on the fuselage then it doesn’t really matter what I do on the winglets.

Of course the lettering is meant to be in a certain place on Canards. I wrote CASA for a ruling and never got a reply. I think I’ll be OK.

Mat from Airship Solutions did a great job and generously spent way more time on this that I had estimated. This stuff takes a lot of work.

 

 

Date:  05-09-2022

Number of Hours:  4

Manual Reference:  25

After more than two years and several false starts I have found a truly talented airbrush artist to make my plane unique. If you need something special, I am happy to recommend you get in touch with Stacy Lourens via his FB page.

Stacy at work. I have prepped the nose area with maroon scotchbrite giving a dull surface for the waterbased paint to key on to. We looked at other options but in the end old school scuffing won.

Early stages of the outlines. Some time was taken making several feather size templates to keep both sides ‘similar’ during the process.

More depth added.

First stages of colour appear.

Exceptional details emerge.

Early stages of beak and mouth colour. As an observer it appears that airbrush work here goes from light to dark, slowly building up the depth and the very important shadow direction.

A broader look at the working area with a small portable compressor to drive the airbrush paint.

Here’s the artwork completed but before the clear coat process.

The eye is based on a side recognition light that I positioned a few years back with the idea something that had an ‘eye’ would end up as nose art.

Feather details with shadows speaks for itself.

I think this is a very clever way to make the mouth work with the existing headlight lens.

We went for three coats of two pack clear to seal the job. A dust coat followed by two wet coats. My avionics guy who remains masked and unidentifiable also can paint along with just about everything else. No, I still won’t tell you who he is. He is busy with my plane.

Now with some shine and the masking tape removed you can appreciate the depth of colour.

It really pops.

Expect see the beast arriving at an airfield near you one day. It will be hard to miss.

 

 

Date:  07-01-2021

Number of Hours:  0

Manual Reference:  25

Beautiful straight off the gun. There are a LOT of dust particles and I could do the work and make it super smooth. For now I will chat with the painter and maybe leave it until after I’ve flown. If performance is a little down from expectations, particularly in the canard stall, then maybe I’ll do the sand and polish work then.

For today, I’ll just enjoy another major step forward.

Date:  06-26-2021

Number of Hours:  20

Manual Reference:  25

Finally, the top coats. Three to be exact.

Here’s the paint we used. I still need to check on the high build primer. Three top coats. A light one, then medium then a wet coat.

A brief word about the painter. I’ve done all hundreds of hours of fill and prep on my plane except for three days.  Day one high build primer was sprayed on, day two sanding, day three more prep and top coats. I think this is a good mix. My guy has averaged painting two planes a week for twenty years. His skills were next level. It cost a lot and thats the price of a job I could not do to anything like the standard I now have.

There will be one more day when all the smaller pieces will be painted off site and returned to me. Then there will be sealant around all the window edges.

Unfortunately I won’t get these parts back for two weeks so I’m yet again held up on the build until they are returned.

BUT WAIT…. lets roll back a few weeks again. Its all about the preparation, aka the never ending story.

After I had spent around 30 hours hand sanding the top surfaces yet again with long boards. The professional painter came for a day and did the undersides. That sander thing on wheels takes the compressed air from the sanding hand piece and keeps ALL the dust in the unit. Air, electricity, 180 grit sandpaper and skill gets it done.

I wanted to sand with the wings off so I could do the bottoms. Doh! All I needed was and office chair.

Oh and to the office chair you might add 20 years experience painting airplanes and helicopters.

Just to roll back a little, I did recheck these surfaces on the canard as they are particularly critical to getting my stall (canard) as low as possible.

All good or as good as I can get them.

Here we are a few weeks later and its top coat day. My job was to get all the pin holes filled before that day.

I thought I had done a through job. We wetted down the walls and floor to reduce dust. The painter got the air-blower out and the hunt was on for missed pinholes and a final surface check.

Using a marker pen all the missed pinholes appears as if my magic. Blow on them and they show up. This was just one small area. The whole plane needed these tiny holes filled that I had missed. Then the expert rechecked again and we found more and more. This is just part of the process apparently.

Then a wipe down with special grease and wax remover I assume. It was wax on wax off for a while, or really wipe on wipe off using two cloths.

You’ll never guess what we found…. more pin holes to fill!

After the pin hole hunt was over, With fill and sand and clean again, a final step was needed. This was a simple tack rag over the whole plane. It gave me something to do while the painter mixed paint.

After the first light top coat I snuck in for a quick picture.

After three coats here is the result.

No runs or blemishes, just a shine straight off the gun.

After enormous preparations to a degree I would never have achieved on my own it is done.

No sanding and polishing for a perfect finish. Its looking good to me. I have a quality gloss finish. I’m not going to a car show with this, I am flying around the world.

Date:  05-27-2021

Number of Hours:  20

Manual Reference:  25

The plane has begun the final stages of the paint journey.

First it had to go for a taxi to a nearby hangar.

Of course with no engine taxi is ‘code’ for pushing the pusher.

In the paint shop.

All taped up by the very capable painter, Ian. No last name, he is booked out until next year as it is.

More careful taping and then I left while Ian got out the high build primer.

After a lot of work. It looks great. This was the colour I wanted but we all know it must be white.

Looks pretty good but you can’t see the many pinholes everywhere.

I’m using Dolphin Glaze to fill those tiny pin holes. I mix very small quantities and then apply it with a razor blade to ensure those holes are filled.

More filling over all the top surfaces.

Next up is some panel beater black.

The black sooty stuff looks pretty rugged where the pin hole filler is. Note the Durablock sanding tools, aka the sticks of pain.

Many hours later it is getting smooth.

More sanding with the long boards and 220 grit paper.

The canard has come out to the correct profile per my template tool. That wasn’t by accident.

The wing tops are not too bad. Ian is going to do the undersides on a chair with an air sander. I need to see that! Not for a week or so because we are again in lock-down due to a Covid 19 outbreak.

Date:  05-21-2021

Number of Hours:  1

Manual Reference:  25

My Long-EZ, VH-XEZ, today escaped the hangar for a trip to the paint booth.

She was happy to get some fresh air after years indoors.

Still missing an engine it was not going to be a long trip.

No great heights were achieved. No contact required with the tower.

It was a bit of a taxi around some hangars. Better than nothing.

We found the paint booth without too much trouble. I’m grateful for the generosity of the person who has allowed me in there for the work. It is hugely appreciated. No names here, but… thank-you.

Then it was a lot of walking to get the loose items in the new shed. Despite some help I did get my 10,000 steps in that day.

A flashback from six years ago, 12_6_15 when I first visited the airfield with my build to fit the spar and wings.

One day I will taxi past that sock to the holding point on Golf two and then line up on 17 Right for departure.

Date:  05-20-2021

Number of Hours:  31

Manual Reference:  25

There were quite a number of ‘small’ tasks that needed to be finished before the paint shop.

This is one of several cowl intersections that I improved. I can hardly say fixed. I have narrowed the edge margins and spent a few hours increasing others. Not a lot of pics because it was all incremental, Just days of work.

Now this was really bothering me. The pitot is off center. How did I let this slide? Well no more, time to fix this.

I heated the tube with a soldering iron until the epoxy became soft and then the pitot slid out easily. I widened the slot to the right and then reset the pitot nearer the center. The usual hot glue and sticks while the epoxy went hard.

After a clean up post cure, its now much closer to the middle. Not perfect but I can live with it.

Given I’m off to paint soon I thought its a good time to do the rear cowl intersections. They were not good. It was a last chance to do them before paint. Mind you the cowls will not be painted until after the engine install. I will be putting in an oil and coolant door for starters. I did want to take the time now to at least get them a little closer at the rear. One less big job for later.

Who knows what the cowls will look like when they are done.

Another day or so worth of work was to remake the top of the nose gear box and then make new brackets and reposition the white controller box from the top of the gear box to the side. All done as you can see above.

I went over the windows with fresh tape. It was later replaced by the painter.

A few final looks before the paint booth.

Will it be a sharks head, a fish or something else? For now the plane gets to be painted white.

A final test before painting to see if the gear goes all the way down to the kneeing position. Yes it does.

 

Date:  04-26-2021

Number of Hours:  65

Manual Reference:  25

Time to really clean up around the cowl. Time to install the camloc lightweight adjustable fasteners. Time to clean up and match the cowl intersections, the spar, strake and wing intersections. In short time for a lot of things that need doing before I can paint. Things I had been putting off.

This took a good month which is horrifying in terms of time. The cowls just didn’t quite fit right. I though I had it nailed ages ago. ….WRONG.

Gratuitous cowl shot because I like my own photography. It is an interesting shape. Probably needs an engine.

Cowls on and clicoed in place. Not quite a perfect fit after all.

Looks OK here but it was not pretty at the lower sides and underneath.

I thought all I had to do was use the clico holes and that was my match drilling done. So I went ahead and did the fasteners.

This perfect looking seam took a lot of fill and fair with the cowls on and off numerous times.

OK, I’ll get to making this perfect later. The rear of the cowl fastener area will be filled and filled later as well. No point in painting these now as I have at least an oil door to put in. Maybe a door to check the coolant levels too. So this will be painted after the fuselage.

This is just a taste of the fill and fair I did multiple times, top and bottom.

Another photo that I just liked the shape of.

The holes and the fasteners were a touch out after my match drilling plan failed. I should have done it insitu. I ended up filling about half of all the camloc holes with flox and one ply of glass. I then redrilled them and dremeled and hand filled to get a pretty good match-up.  Now the fasteners fit in more easily.

This is the bottom intersection that took a LOT of work to get right. Did I mention the globs of filler I used on all the cowl lips? No? OK, I’m not proud of that. There was some possibility of oil canning. I needed a better flush fit. The top cowl just wasn’t sitting right.

A couple of weeks probably went into filling and fiddling to make them sit more easily. It sometimes takes a while to understand why something doesn’t work so I keep at it until it makes sense.

Its not perfect down here but it is a LOT better than it was. Working upside down is not my favorite thing. Who knew?

More work getting these parts fitting like they should. I have more pics but its depressing. This is now pretty close to painting time.

I still have a few more hours to tweak things but its almost good enough (the enemy of perfection).

 

 

Date:  03-20-2021

Number of Hours:  3

Manual Reference:  25

It is a requirement to have the word experimental visible when someone enters the plane. The letters must be 50mm high or more.

I should have used stick on ones as they are cheap and easy. The issue is they do come off after a while and my surface is not smooth so they will come off fast. I went for an expensive paint mask instead.

Lots of work to get to this stage.

Some of the paint got under the letters so it is not the nice crisp edge I had hoped for. Maybe I will touch it up, maybe not. I am slightly amused that the word ‘experimental’ looks imperfect. After all, its an experiment right? So maybe I will leave it just as it is, as a statement.

Another requirement is the placard saying CASA is not responsible. They are not, I am. So if you fly with me, know that I have gone to incredible lengths to ensure my own safety and set my own very high airworthy standards.

My MENTAL status is rock solid and the focus is always on safety when I fly as well as during the whole build process. You get to decide if this declaration is OK should you be invited onboard.