Brief Description: Cowl trimming and nose pant glass
Did some more trimming for cowling clearance around the rocker covers. Used hand files to do the work.
Removed the nose wheel and fitted the two halves for the nose wheel pant. I had hacked those apart back on 10/20/2012. With the sides of the pant tight against the nose wheel "U" , The bottom of the front and rear could butt to one another, but there was a tapering gap from the ends to the center, with about a 3/4" gap at the top. I clecoed a couple of strips at the top to located the halves after removal. I only glassed the top half at this time so I wouldn't be getting resin all over my arms while reaching inside to glass the opposite seam. When cured I'll glass the bottom seam. I put a last layer of polyester cloth on the layup. When curred the cloth peals off and leaves a surface suitable for additional glassing. No additional sanding should be required before doing more layups if needed. I used 4 layers of glass for the layup.
I am going to try and fiberglass the halves back together with a flange in the center so I can screw the two halves together to install/remove them, similar to how the top/bottom cowling are attached to each other. This might turn out better than cutting a large enough hole in the top of the pant to slide the strut through and then using a cover plate to cover the hole. In preparation for the flange, I covered the inside of one half of the pant with plastic packing tape. I dipped the tips of the clecos in grease before installing the locating straps and rubbed some grease on the non-flange side of the wheel pant. Between the tape and grease, the parts should split apart ok. I'll glass across the joint, and hopefully the fiberglass won't stick to the tape. When cured, I'll split the pant and trim up the exposed edge of the flange.
