Today I continued work on the cowling. I finished positioning the upper cowl and screwed it to the spinner blank I had made. I then fit the lower cowl in place and trimmed the front corner where the two halves overlap. Now I was able to set the for-aft position of the lower cowl and trim the aft edges. First I teimmed the lower edge at the bottom of the fuselage and with it clamped in place I marked the sides where they meet the fuselage. I removed the cowl, trimmed the edges and then refit. I screwed the lower cowl to the spinner blank and tripple check the position. I am using the full-size hinge pins for now. When I switch to the smaller pins the cowl should drop about 3/32 and give me a little more margin for future engine sag. With both halves held firmly in place, I traced the line from the upper cowl onto the lower and then made the cut. So far everything is coming out very well. There is a slight gap at the front flange of the cowl where it should be flat. This is a known issue with the "pepto-pink" cowls and is a problem with the mold. I will just have to do a little fill work to make it flat.
