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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 3-11-2017
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Number of Hours: 3.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Misc finishing work
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Today was a short session focused on finish work. There are a lot of fiberglass-related tasks to complete as I enter the final stages before first flight, so I devoted some time to making some preparations for that. I’ve waited until the weather begins to warm up to finish the canopy and windscreen work, so today I cleaned up the forward fuselage and used electrical tape to mask off the area where I plan to install the fairing. This area is one of the few that the builder must entirely fabricate from scratch, and due to the very visible nature of the fairing, I wanted to take plenty of time to ensure I got it right.
The idea behind the electrical tape (used by many builders) is to provide a very thin layer of protection on the windshield while also serving as the outline of the final fairing to guide the application of fiberglass. With that, the tape must be applied exactly as the builder intends to install the fairing since the fiberglass will feather into the edge of the tape all the way around the windshield. Due to the variances in the cut line on the forward edge of the windscreen, I elected to use a simple radius gauge to reference a common line between the fuselage and the windscreen. After applying the tape, I stepped back and checked the curves from a distance to ensure that the overall effect was what I intended. That perspective revealed a couple of areas where the tape was a little wavy, so I corrected those and once complete put a line of blue masking tape around the edges to transition between the electrical tape and windscreen protective plastic…I don’t want to get any epoxy on the windscreen!
I’ll leave that in place for a couple of weeks and see if I need to make any changes, if not, I will start the fairing work around the first of April. I finished the session by evaluating all of the fairings, wingtips, etc, for the work necessary to complete and started putting together a plan to do some glassing. I see much sanding in my future…
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Windshield fairing prep
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