The instrument panel arrived from Stark Avionics today. Of course I had to un-box everything and see how it fit. My biggest concern in the layout design was to not have interference with the cross cabin brace and the back of the G-430. Well the measurements worked out just fine, the bottom of the G-430 is just above the brace as you can see in the photo.
I am really not happy with the workmanship, I expected a really professional looking panel, I could have done much better myself, which make me think why I just did not doo this myself. The cutouts are fine but the riveting of the racks and supports are just awful. The Dynon 180 rack is so deformed the instrument will not fit into the rack. And then when fitting the other instruments I discovered the ICOM 210 rack was installed upside down. The only brace for vertical movement of the radio stack is a thin piece of galvanized strapping. This certainly did not seem adequate for an airplane that can pull 6 Gs.
I emailed John Stark with my complaints ready to fight for why I thought things needed to be redone. No debate required John was totally agreeable to redoing the entire panel, he apologized for the shoddy work and felt there was a break down in Quality Control and promised he would get to the bottom of it and that is would never happen again. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to have someone stand behind their work in this way. Of course it is sad to have the issue happen to begin with but every company can have a break down in the quality of workmanship, as the owner John is ultimately responsible but he can’t inspect every project. He promised me a 2 day turn around once he gets the old panel back. The panel is already in the mail back to him, same day it arrived, shipping is being paid for by him! This is how you resolve things with your customers.
You can see the G-430 clears the brace just fine
Panel test fit
Instruments set in place. I still need to buy the D-10A
