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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 7-4-2017
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Number of Hours: 3.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Cowl work
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The holiday weekend involved travel and family activities, so I wasn't able to spend much time at the hangar, but did manage to make it out for a brief session today. I started by sanding down the top cowling to continue revealing the low spots and places where there is still some open weave from the fiberglass layup. Most of it looks pretty good, but there are a couple of places—generally along the aft sides—that are going to need some filling. I’m evaluating what options I have, but there is a Bondo product that looks like it might have some promise, so I may get some of that and see how it works.
After sanding awhile, I put the top cowling on the aircraft and started researching the plans to see how the inlet ramps and other various pieces attached. There is an assembly on the aft part of the lower cowling that will have to be fabricated, and the oil door on the top cowling, but other than the inlet ramps and the camlocks, the cowlings don’t have much assembly required. One “funny” note on the plans—it appears that by the time they got to the page devoted to cowling installation, the good folks at Van’s were either tired, or out of paper. By all appearances someone said “just put it all on one page” as the number and complexity of the drawings on that single page is a bit mind boggling. And, to add to the challenge, the drawings are so small that the detail is hard to discern. I guess at this stage of the build you are somewhat on your own in that regard.
I drilled the inlet ramps to the cowling to hold them in place for fitting, and after some trimming along the outside edges mixed up some epoxy and attached them with clecoes to hold everything in place. After the epoxy cures I will fill the holes and continue the process of fitting the cowling and trimming the baffle fabric to get everything playing nicely together. Still some work to go there.
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Inlet ramp installation
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