I’m picking my buddy Tom up at the airport tomorrow afternoon. He’s going to help me finish the riveting of the cabin since you need two people to complete the job, one person on the outside running the rivet gun, and the other in the inside bucking the rivet. In the meantime, I have a handful of things to do to prepare for the cabin the ship to the painter by the end of the week.
One item remaining is to finish fitting the instrument panel to the pod so the pod can go to paint with the cabin and the rest of the interior panels. After a significant amount of filing, I have the fit I’ve been wanting. I still have some finishing to do on the inside of the panel, but then I will begin the multiple coated wrinkle finish process.
Another issue that came up that I have been kicking around for awhile is the idea of adding a Directional Gyro and an Attitude Indicator to the instrument package. This will mean moving two of the existing quad gauges to the console, which I think will be fine. I would like to be able to eventually have the option of doing some instrument training in this ship, but I would need to add this instruments. I haven’t ordered them yet, but I’m hoping the current holes will work so I don’t have to remake the panel. Fingers crossed. I will focus on this next week after the cabin is at the paint shop.
I’m also preparing for the engine to arrive and I had a coupon for Harbor Freight, so I bought a shop crane. It folds up nicely when not in use.
