Will
I understand your concern and agree with everything Fred has said, with
hindsight I would have fitted/glued the headlining material and cut and
trial fitted the carpets etc.
More importantly I temporally mounted on both sides of the canoe a 25mm
wide strip of 3mm steel on the inside of the mating flange with 5mm
cheese headed bolts every 150mm, I then lowered the top on and into
position made clearing holes so that I could remove the bolts/strips
later after final gluing, and the used bolts with plate washers tapped
into the steel strip instead of the clecoes. I used clecoes round the
tail as per the manual. This allowed me to fit and refit the top and
align everything before we finally glued the top on. This method reduces
the humps you tend to create along the joint line and subsequently the
amount of filler needed to smooth it out later. I was also able to make
L brackets to support the baggage bay bulkhead and trial fit before the
final gluing. One last thing, if like me you find it necessary to take
the top on and off many times, I mackled up a simple overhead winch to
do the job [there is no weight but its very unwieldy] and from memory as
soon as glue gets involved the simplest of tasks can grow horns.
Good luck.
Richard
From: Fred Klein
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: Europa-List: Trim damper and sticking the top on.
Will,
As tempting as it may be to cross the =93top bonding threshold=94, in my
case I was content to mate top to canoe with clecos spaced at 12=94 o.c.
until the very last possible moment=85that is=85until I had scoured the
build manual thoroughly and literally could NOT find ANYTHING whatsoever
which did not ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE the top to have been bonded on in order
to accomplish it. And you have to be thinking of things you want to do
with your build which are in addition to the standard kit which may have
no mention in the manual.
When I say use clecoes, I=92m not relying upon the dozen little threaded
temporary fasteners which came w/ the kit, because IMO if you defer top
bonding beyond the stage cited in the manual, it is critical to use a
sufficient number of fasteners to ensure that the geometry of the
fuselage is fixed and not subject to wobble or twist. I had bought (I
think 100) of the push pull clecos which are popped in and out w/ a
simple little proprietary tool.
Doing this allowed me, for example, to fully install all my fuel pumps
and plumbing, strobe power supply and wiring with ease=85I even sprayed
my Zolatone finish w/ the canoe upside down and was able to hit the
wells in the baggage bay without contortions=85(of course, I had to go
back and hit the joint between top and canoe later but that was a snap
and the color blended perfectly).
Obviously, when approaching the various tasks out of sequence, one must
keep in mind that things must be positioned for future maintenance, etc.
But I recall marveling on a number of occasions how challenging many
little tasks would have been if I had not followed the sequence that I
had.
When you finally reach the point of actual bonding, a tip I learned from
Kingsley Hurst was to make up, in advance, some little fiberglass
=93washers=94=85I think I made up some w/ 2 layers of BID and some w/ 4
layers of BID. So at every cleco, I would use a washer of the required
thickness to bring the exterior surface of the top and canoe flush w/
one another thus saving the weight, time, and trouble of applying and
sanding an excessive amount of filler to eliminate the appearance of a
seam. I noted at each cleco the number and thickness of washers
required. Of course this technique relies on the ability of Redux / flox
to bridge the resulting gap resulting from the thickness of the washers,
so use plenty of material to ensure the seam is fully filled and bonded.
Good luck,
Fred
On Jun 14, 2014, at 4:34 PM, William Daniell
<wdaniell.longport@gmail.com> wrote:
Yesterday I got permission from the inspector to turn my canoe into
and airplane. But before i stick the top on can I ask the general
wisdom for gotchas.
I have done installed pretty much everything I can,,,I think. All the
tail assembly, the pitch containment plywood thing and the electrics.
The coax for the antenna. Installed the battery the main gear and the
flap actuator system, set the wing incidence...
Anything else I should have done?
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