Brief Description: Trimming canopy skin & installing the cowling hing
I did not have much time yesterday but managed to go forward. After the struts installation completed yesterday, I final trimmed the side clearance of the canopy skin. It is falling perfectly in line with the side fuselage skin. There is one last thing to fit properly and this is the clearance between the canopy skin and the to forward fuselage skin. Despite the 1/16" clearance between them, there is still a contact happenning right in the center, Something that is still on my to do list.
Yesterday I also added the cowling hinge on the firewall. Not really complicated but I noticed that some hinge eyelet will need to be trimmed down in the corners as when it was bent in place, some of the eyelet were forced to be closer . Not by much but enough that they wont match together. This will require some detail filing.
About the cowling hinge attachment decision I made, I debated to switch it for the quick 1/4 turn system sold by Aircraft Spruce called the Skybolt Cowling Mount. I elected to keep the hinge because those that I saw using the Skybolt , the cowling edge after a little while becomes wavy, which does not happen with the hinge system. Once the waves are introduced in the cowling edge, paint is chipping. I have checked it on few RV6 and one RV4 that had the skybolt system, and all had the same problem. So I saved 600$ and possible future desappointment by keeping the hinge !
