Lower door completed

I could not resist this morning and I had to trial fit the tail panels to see how they looked. I think they will look fine for the "beater" Cub. Here is the right side.

After basking in the glory of completion for a few minutes I got to work finishing the lower door. All that remained was to weld together the rods that actuate the latching pins. I had a couple pieces of the 1/8     4130 rod left over to practice on and it became clear that the assembly had to be carefully supported or it would bend when hot enough to weld. Rather than weld I decided to try to wrap the two rods together with wire and solder them. I just could not get the solder to flow and , I think the rods just soaked out too much heat.
I killed an hour on this, then just went with plan "A" to weld with careful jigging and heat management. Since my welding skills are sub par I practiced on some nails until I could stick them together.

Not very pretty , but they are stuck together. I then used a piece of scrap metal to protect the door handle, wet rags the cover the other painted areas and then stainless steel tape to protect the rags. It all worked good with just a little burning of the primer.

I did make the mistake of using a Cleco clamp as a heat sink on one end,  it just could not take the heat.

It's not the most beautiful weld but I think it is good enough for this application. After this picture I carefully bead blasted the weld and the damaged primer areas. It is ready for some touch up primer tomorrow and the door will be ready for cover.

With the door finished, I then worked on the right rear window and fitted the refinished trim strip. It came out pretty nice.

Here is the lower door all fitted to the airplane. The new latching mechanism works really good. It was worth the work.

The rest of the evening was spent flying, it was super nice with the moon rising and the sun setting, Sweet!