Brief Description: cutting baffles to fit upper cowl-1
The first task today was to try out the purple polish but first I had to prep. The inlet ramp on right side was badly marred during the bending and fitting and I had used corse paper to sand out the deep scratches. So, I sanded by hand the thing with paper from 320 grit up to 1000 grit and also a nice accompnying hand cramp. Then polished with purple polish by hand. Came out a nice dull shine. In the pic below you can compare shine of ramp to the cylinder baffle its attached to which is aluminum clad. I kinda like it this way but it also shows how important the sanding prep is and how much a drill and buff pad might help. I did same exercise on the front baffles and used a bufing pad attached to drill and it semed to inprove the gloss. Im only trying to se how difficult a simple polishing will be if I wait until the baffles are installed and I want to then beautify them some. Spent a good two hours teaching myself this.
Installed part of the baffles. Plan is to leave the oil cooler baffle and the # 4 cylinder baffle off and fit the rest first. Mainly the back and front baflles back and forth, Id lay the cowl on top and see where its hitting and trim the the baffles with snips while its still mounted. Im trying to just get the cowl to seat into position with a very small gap first and this required probably 15 itterations to this point. Its afout there. Once i get it to seat, Ill use paperclips to mark actual gaps and then try to cut in the required clearence. Then Add the left off baffles and just connect the dots from one baffle to the other.
Sanding and polish trial on right ramp. Not as shinny as hoped but I like a semi dull finish here anyw
This is the baffles Im starting with for fitting top cowl to
